What do all of the following women...

have in common?

Kat Brand, CEO of Cinnabon, a business with $1 billion in annual revenues.
Julia Hurley, Republican member of the Tennessee State Assembly.
Holly Madison, former star of "The Girls Next Door".
Leeann Tweeden, host of the now cancelled "Poker After Dark" and pre/post-game reporter for Fox Sports West.

All four of them, and countless other successful women at one time wore the tiny orange shorts and tight tank-top of a Hooters Girl.  I personally know two women who left their jobs at Hooters to go off to medical school after they put themselves through their undergraduate studies while working there.

Which begs the question.  Do the women who work at Hooters feel exploited?  I've asked a number of them over the years and without exception, their answers have been "no" "no way" and "hell no".  Some of them have complained about a number of factors related to their job and the working conditions there, but none feel they are being exploited.  As one said "if I felt I was being exploited, why would I stay?"

I suspect that a lot of the feminists who claim the women who work there are being exploited have no idea what really goes on inside of what is basically another sports bar with average, overpriced food, and lots of TVs showing every variety of major sporting event.  The girls may be in tight orange shorts and tank-tops, but bras are mandatory as are those ugly shiny tights and gigantic socks they wear.  They have more clothes on and show less flesh than the women on any beach, or near any swimming pool on a warm day.  They don't do strip dances, although they will dance the YMCA dance whenever the manager plays that particular Village People song.  I've been in other sports bars where the waitresses were more exposed and the attitude was much sleazier.

We all have jobs in our past that may not mesh up with what we do now, or who we are as people.  If I were to list all of the jobs I've ever done for pay, I'd have to include gigs I'd rather not list.  Fortunately they were so long ago that they've fallen off of my resume.  Even if I weren't disabled at the moment, no employer needs to know that back in the 1970s, I worked as a floor guard and a disc jockey at a roller disco in Miami.  Nor do my adult stints at several McDonald's restaurants worked part-time while I was in the military need to be part of any discussion of my work history.  I'm not ashamed of any of the work I've ever done, it just doesn't define who I am today in any major way.

So the next time you see an attractive, successful woman and you wonder how she got there, don't assume anything.  You don't know how she got where she is and you really don't need to know.  As long as she broke no laws, she's who she is now and should not be defined by having worn a pair of orange shorts at some point in her past.