I was walking home one day and I wondered to myself why, at the majority of nightclubs, do women get free entry before a certain time, and why are there special nights devoted to women, such as ladies night?
From a female’s perspective, it can be nice to not have to worry about the entrance fee at a club making it financially attractive to go out for the night and have a good time, but I never looked at this concept from a male’s perspective. Males, have to pay entrance fees for the night, buy their own drinks, and if they’re trying to get to know a girl, one of norms is to purchase a drink for the girl they are trying to impress .
There are many explanations as to why club promoters offer promotions like this. From a historical and sociological context, one may say that women have been oppressed for years, and disadvantaged to men, as a reflection of this, one could look at women’s fight to vote, to enter the workplace, and their constant battle for equal pay. Women have been engulfed into a system of patriarchy and gender discrimination for years, and still are. Some may propose that ladies night, or allowing women to enter for free before a certain time, gives women the opportunity to be free of oppression, and discrimination for once. This then leads me to my counter-argument as to why this liberation is applied in the club setting alone? Why couldn’t this same concept be applied in restaurants, movie theatres, dance classes, or other activities? Is it just a simply a marketing scheme used by the club promoters to increase to increase their client population and revenue?
If that is the case, then I feel like ladies night, or ladies entering free no longer becomes a symbol of liberation in the patriarchal society we are striving to move away from, but rather a form of objectification to women. This concept seems as if women are being presented as individuals for men to lust over when they go out, consequently, the more women there are in a venue, the more men will follow.
I feel as if this poses no benefit to women, but rather is beneficial to club promoters as they make more profit, and to men who will have the benefit of entering an environment where their fantasies of having many females in one location be accessible to them. In my opinion it’s sad really. I somehow was convinced that we were straying away from this antiquated system of oppression, sexism, patriarchy, and gender inequality where in reality we have so much work to do as a society.
Jasmine Geranium, 2B Arts & Business
