{"id":2508,"date":"2016-05-20T09:33:13","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T04:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/13.201.39.237\/?p=2508"},"modified":"2016-05-20T09:33:13","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T04:03:13","slug":"ladies-night-feminist-wednesdays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/13.207.105.184\/?p=2508","title":{"rendered":"Are Ladies\u2019 Nights Really Sexist?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

L<\/span><\/p><\/div>

ast Wednesday, I was jolted from the stupor of my humdrum existence when I accidentally spilled some piping hot green tea on my laptop. Like any true millennial, I was bereft. My plans of a cosy evening with Jessica Jones<\/i><\/a> had gone for a toss along with my comforting beverage. The thought of making a fresh cuppa and curling up with a good book crossed my mind, but it was immediately followed by a voice that sounded uncannily like my mother\u2019s, suggesting that it was high time I committed to some kind of interaction with the outside world. And maybe put on a clean pair of pants.\n\nThis was sound logic, and I couldn\u2019t argue with the voice. So I decided to do what I assumed cool, fun girls do on a Wednesday night \u2013 I stuck my poor laptop into a bag of basmati, phoned a friend, and headed for a club whose ladies\u2019 night advertisement screamed, \u201cFree shots until 1.30 am!\u201d\n\nNot very long ago, I was a stranger to this bizarre big-city phenomenon called ladies\u2019 night. \u201cWhat do you mean EVERYTHING is FREE for women?\u201d But, having grown up in a middle-class family<\/a> in a small town, the word \u201cfree\u201d was like a Bat-Signal for my inner Monisha Sarabhai<\/a>. In some ways, I felt like I had spent my whole life preparing for this paisa-vasool spree.\n\nImagine sashaying casually past the bouncers like your name is Beyonc\u00e9<\/a>, bartenders plying you with gleaming bottles of Bacardi, waving trays bejewelled with jello shots under your nose. Girls of all kinds were flitting around, too many mimosas down, occasionally tripping over their own stilettoed feet. This was ladies\u2019 night, in all its ros\u00e9-tinted glory. How could Jessica Jones and her uncompromising flask of lukewarm Bourbon compare?\n\nJust as I was really sinking into the high-gloss atmosphere \u2013 and my river of free booze \u2013 a friend ruined the sanctity of the moment. Seeing that I had found my way back to the bar again, he smugly remarked, \u201cHow can you call yourself a feminist<\/a> and still have these free drinks? I thought you were all for equality.\u201d\n\n

Guys swarm to bars and clubs to ogle at sloshed bridal parties and drunk college girls trying to dab<\/p><\/blockquote> \n\nAt the time, I merely downed my fifth tequila shot pointedly, with a heaping side of salt. But did he have a point? The ethical conundrum of ladies\u2019 nights has become the source of much confusion and legislation across the world. Ladies nights has been deemed unlawful in Hong Kong<\/a>, Australia<\/a>, and the UK<\/a> since they \u201cdiscriminate on grounds of sex\u201d. A report in The Telegraph<\/i> titled \u201cOh yes it\u2019s ladies\u2019 night and the feeling\u2019s wrong\u201d, points out that ladies\u2019 night and other common door policies relating to gender are in fact illegal under the 2010 Equality Act, according to UK\u2019s Equality and Human Rights Commission. The Act defines discrimination as when someone \u201ctreats another less favourably than they treat others because of a \u2018protected characteristic,\u2019\u201d such as gender.\n\nClearly, my killjoy friend was not alone in his earnest pursuit of \u201cgender equality\u201d.\n\nThe rhetoric of these rulings is that in an equal world, women shouldn\u2019t get free liquor for doing nothing more than wearing make-up<\/a> and strutting along in high heels. Of course, the other side of the argument is that women tend to make less money than men, and are subject to the pink tax<\/a> and a lot more discrimination in general, so they\u2019ve surely earned a few free drinks. Why shouldn\u2019t women have something, even if it\u2019s just a night out, go in their favour for once?\n\nBut the biggest paradox of an event that\u2019s ostensibly for women, is the sheer number of men who turn up. Many establishments not only rely on the male customers to make up their losses, but double their cover so the guys end up subsidising all the free Long Island iced teas and vodka-crans. \u201cBecause men are still expected to make more money, they are also expected to pay for us ladies. Ladies\u2019 night can be seen as a holdover from the time when men were the sole providers,\u201d an essay in Jezebel<\/i><\/a> <\/i>argues.\n\nOne Hong Kong club owner said, \u201cA club without girls is not a club.\u201d Women are as necessary to their business model as fish are to barrels. Guys swarm to bars and clubs to ogle at sloshed bridal parties and drunk college girls trying to dab. They stand in the corner, all Don Draper-esque, with expensive drinks and exploding dreams about the potential of so much inebriated, accessible women. They dance up against unsuspecting girls, as if by paying the women\u2019s cover charge, they\u2019ve earned the right to their bodies and their time. And many of them hope and pray that the alcohol<\/a> does what their personalities cannot \u2013 seduce one of these women to go home with their sorry asses at the end of the evening.\n\nThe whole ladies\u2019 night exercise then is just a large-scale version of a guy buying you a drink at the bar. You wonder if it\u2019s a good idea to accept, whether it will create tiresome expectations and lead to blatant objectification, or worse. But then it will strike you \u2013 ladies\u2019 night or not, saying yes to that drink or no \u2013 you\u2019re probably going to be objectified in 12 different ways before you get home tonight. There\u2019s always that one dude skulking in a corner somewhere making you uncomfortable with his prying, piercing gaze, or the sad soul who keeps introducing himself to you, getting progressively more drunk with each attempt.\n\nSpeaking of guys who won\u2019t leave you in peace, I think I finally have an answer for my friend.\n\nLadies\u2019 night is pretty damn sexist, but it\u2019s not because I get to enjoy free drinks while he\u2019s stuck with an overpriced Old Monk<\/a>. It\u2019s because using women as bait to lure men is a legitimate marketing policy for clubs around the world, and this is unfortunately seen as a heartbreaking inequality for men in some parts of the world.\n\nStill, what do I know? Feminists just wanna have fun, and truth be told, I only came here for my Beyonc\u00e9 moment.\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can you be a feminist and support ladies\u2019 nights? Of course, women shouldn\u2019t get free liquor for just wearing make-up and high heels. But the other side of the argument is that women tend to make less money than men, so surely they\u2019ve earned a few free drinks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":2509,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[170],"tags":[4526,4670,2460,5111,5112,2402,4333,5113],"class_list":["post-2508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gender","tag-drinks","tag-feminist","tag-ladies","tag-ladies-night","tag-liquor","tag-men","tag-sexist","tag-wednesday"],"yoast_head":"\nAre Ladies\u2019 Nights Really Sexist?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Can you be a feminist and support ladies\u2019 nights? 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