We live in a world where sexual violence is trivialised, and even though #MeToo and similar campaigns are being heard more than ever before, rape and sexual abuse are still laughed at far too often. Rather than listening to victims and survivors and taking these issues seriously, we minimise the damage that is caused and look away.
Never has this been more apparent than when a new burger joint opened up in my city last week. No doubt trying to be edgy, their menu showed that they were serving burgers called the Weinstein, Fake Taxi and Casting Couch, amongst other questionable names. Naming food after a known sexual harasser, and after two scenarios known to exploit women, shows a disregard for their female customers in particular.
Imagine having to order a “Say Nuttin’”, an “XXX”, a “Hardcore Classic” and a “Weinstein” for your group. Imagine doing that with your gran at your side. It’s shameful.
Charlotte Mead, Branch leader for Sheffield branch of Women’s Equality Party said “This is yet another example of the normalisation of sexual assault. This is a restaurant, selling food by making jokes about sexual assault, rape and pornography. Using phrases like hardcore and XXX, along with burgers called Fake Taxi – getting in a car thinking it’s a taxi, it’s not and you get raped – and Kelly Kapowski – a schoolgirl young teenage character in an American comedy show – shows us how far we still have to go as a society in our attitudes towards women and girls. It’s a constant reminder to women and girls that this is what we are valued as, but we’ve had enough, and we’re making our voices heard.”
Fake taxis and casting couches are also a theme within porn which, while not necessarily terrible in itself, is an example of how women being exploited is a sexualised theme in the genre. Women get into a fake taxi and are cajoled or tricked into sex. Women go to audition for a part and are cajoled or tricked into sex. It’s not a coincidence that both of those have the same idea… and that Randy’s (yep) chose them both to name their food after.
An inadequate response from the restaurant
Following a Twitter storm, the exploitative burger names made it into the local media. Restaurant manager, Kishayne Wright, told the Sheffield Star: “When we were doing the menu we didn’t think people were going to be so sensitive about it. It is not like we are encouraging people to commit sexual acts.
“I have arranged a meeting with our marketing team tomorrow and we plan on doing a full public apology. Let’s go back to the drawing board and see what we can do to please people.”
The point that Wright is missing is that the objection is not to do with “sexual acts”, it is to do with sexually abusive acts, and the difference is key to understanding why people are offended. I might not choose to go to a bar that bills itself “the home of x-rated burgers”, but I equally wouldn’t kick up a fuss about it.
It’s when that theme becomes exploitative that people object. When it promotes dangerous men and dangerous ideas.
The following day, Randy’s capitulated on one point – it decided to rename the Weinstein burger. But the Weinstein burger wasn’t the only problem.
Restaurant owner Charles Hewitt, again speaking to the Sheffield Star, and again missing the point, said, “We are guilty of poor taste – we have not intended to offend anyone but that is unfortunately what we have done. We don’t take ourselves too seriously here and it was just a bit tongue in cheek.”
The Manchester outlet by the same name has distanced itself from the Sheffield one, while women in Sheffield are planning a rally tomorrow against the continuing offensiveness of the restaurant. The campaigners do not take too kindly to being referred to as “sensitive” over this; as Weinstein’s 70+ victims would attest, this is a relentlessly misogynist world and stunts like this are tedious as well as dangerous.
Fake taxis are a concern for every woman, every time she hails a cab. The casting couch is a humiliating idea that has proven to be far more truthful than fiction. And Weinstein, well, we all know what he has been up to. Even legitimate cabs are too frequently dangerous, and joking about it, or memorialising it in your burger joint’s menu is a reprehensible approach to business.
The restaurant is situated in a student-centric part of town. Young women who live in that area will be faced with it daily, and anyone receiving an invitation to go there from someone who either doesn’t know or doesn’t care about its atmosphere will be faced with a tough decision about how to handle the conversation.
I don’t want to live in a world that trivialises sexual violence, never mind a city that does. It’s time for Randy’s to read the room and back off with its ignorance.
Photo: Marco Verch