The feuding between the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Hooters chain of restaurants results from government overstepping its bounds. Government has made "Hooters" a household name by stimulating confrontations between market forces and those who abhor sexism and their allies in the Nanny State.

People become hot and bothered over Hooters simply because "Hooters Girls" leave so little to the imagination. Thus, the EEOC has targeted them. The very thought that a business could provide an opportunity for waitresses to serve Buffalo wings with a side order of sex appeal infuriates the P.C. crowd at the EEOC. How can the politically incorrect restaurant that provides "Bunnies for Bubbas" be allowed to operate? The EEOC's calling is to bring enlightened social engineering to the masses. Hooters' success demands their special attention.

And that's precisely what happened. No disgruntled male job applicant filed a grievance prior to the controversy. But Hooters' very existence irritates 'Nanny State' regulators at the EEOC. So the EEOC initiated its own three-year investigation.

At an Indianapolis Hooters, for example, waitresses routinely earn from $425 to $600 for their 20-hour work week. And in the last three years, this Hooters has tossed out a total of five people for offensive language. And once, only once, a man inappropriately touched a Hooters Girl and spent two weeks in jail for assault. Look, enjoy, but behave yourself. The system seems to work.

The Reno Hooters provides another excellent example. This restaurant is a bastion of conservatism in a city ruled by casinos, showgirls, and genuinely scantily-clad cocktail waitresses. But the EEOC is scrutinizing Hooters, not Caesar's Palace. This is because the law recognizes that some positions are intrinsically gender-biased. Cowgirls and showgirls are girls, Lady Macbeth is a lady, and women's restroom attendants are women.

But Hooters Girls can be boys, according to EEOC investigators. They concluded that Hooters is just a restaurant. In their estimation, men can fill a Hooters' tank top and serve appetizers just as well as women. Hence, the EEOC fines Hooters $22 million, mandates that 40% of Hooters Girls be men, and demands that Hooters provide scholarships and sensitivity training to benefit men. What country are we living in?

Some people support the EEOC's ruling, some would leaveÊHooters alone, and others would simply wipe Hooters and its 13,000 employees off the map for its insult to politically correct sensitivities. Ironically, regardless of one's feelings about Hooters, the EEOC is doing a great disservice to everyone. Here's how.

EEOC rulings penalize Hooters. Hooters responds by rejecting the EEOC determination that they are merely a restaurant. Hooters asserts, and is prepared to vigorously defend, that their primary mission is "providing vicarious sexual recreation." The EEOC transforms the food and drink into side dishes. The Hooters Girls must be the main attraction. Only then can Hooters justify its hiring practice.

That's Hooters' escape route. When the EEOC forbids Hooters Girls from using sex appeal to sell food, then Hooters must prove that they are using sex appeal to sell sex. The EEOC transforms Hooters from a gimmicky restaurant into a flesh-peddling bar. The law protects the hiring practice of strip clubs, and Hooters can find sanctuary in that status.

Thus, as usual, the Nanny State's efforts backfire. Shielding the prudes and politically correct who cannot tolerate establishments like Hooters pushes Hooters even farther down a scurrilous path that further debases America.

It is a familiar and predictable result. Prohibiting some behavior causes perverse and unintended outcomes. Coercing Hooters to fall into line with the Nanny State's singular vision of how to serve beer will do two things: (1) rob a great many people of benefits as employees, managers, and customers of Hooters; and (2) force Hooters to make selling sex its first priority.

The EEOC and the Nanny State would do well to learn an important lesson from the queen of all nannies, Mary Poppins, who sang, "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down." Incentives make the unpalatable palatable. This is how Hooters uses Hooter Girls to make their burgers and wings appetizing. In the restaurant business, as in the environmental business, market forces encourage entrepreneurs to innovate enterprises that meet the market test. Whereas coercion is counterproductive, we should recognize that market incentives often provide the best means to coordinate social actions. Even when we find the result distasteful, the result is usually preferable to coercion.

The fundamental problem with prohibiting Hooters Girls is that people want them and other people want to become them. The managers support them. The clientele rewards them with their hard-earned money. And the Girls clearly prefer this work to other work. With such powerful advantages, Hooters won't swallow the EEOC's 'medicine' without a fight. By defying these incentives, the EEOC's command-and-control approach yields harmful and perverse results. This is evidenced by Hooters' newfound emphasis on "vicarious sexual recreation."

Hooters maintains 175 restaurants in 38 states and is growing. It is no wonder that the EEOC, an artifact of the Nanny State, cannot stand to see success based on individual liberty and sexist behavior.