This is one of those topics that is both sad and funny. I’ve gotten a few comments about this topic, both as related to clubs & bars as well as my Geek Monthly Matchmaking Mailer program.
It seems that some of you gentlemen are a little peeved at the fact that women are getting special prices. Equality, you say! Whatever happened to equality?
Let me break it to you as kindly as I can – there ain’t no equality.
There’s never been equality and there will never be equality. All we can do is try to tip the scales back and forth until a reasonable outcome occurs.
It hurts, I know. You want the women to pony up and pay their way so you can feel like you’ve both suffered equally in the dating game (at least, financially speaking). But it’s not going to happen that way, and here’s why.
Let’s say you own a club in the bustling metropolis of your choice. Now, you have your regulars, the folks who come in no matter what band or DJ is pumping out the tunes, the folks who come in no matter if it’s Tuesday or Saturday. They’re your bread and butter.
But as we all know, you can’t live on bread and butter alone. It gets boring. Eventually, all of your bread knows all of your butter. They’ve intermingled so long that they’re tired of each other. Or, worse yet, a fight breaks out between one pair and you lose a bunch of butters because they don’t like the kind of bread that hangs out at your establishment anymore.
So, if you keep things on the even, you’ll eventually end up toast. Dry, tasteless toast.
But you’re a smarter cookie. You think to yourself, there’s got to be a way to bring in lots of new people. But you want to be sure you get a good mix of the genders, since everyone knows one of the best ways to get business is to be “that club with the hot chicks everywhere.”
How does one procure a good ratio of chicks to … gentlemen?
You have Ladies Night. With inexpensive drinks for the ladies, you ensure that 1) more ladies show up to your club than other clubs in the area and 2) said ladies are inebriated enough to want to go home with your … gentlemen clientele.
It’s win-win, isn’t it? …and before you get on your high horse and start whining, think about haircuts. Those have been priced in favor of men for years and have only now started to even out in price. Don’t you owe us a couple free White Russians? (Besides, the free drinks are always with the crappy cheap alcohol anyway.)
Clubbing has never been my style, so I’ve always gone out to events like live concerts, swing dances, and movies. These are priced equally for both genders. Online dating sites are also priced equivalently for both men and women.
So why is GeekMMM‘s price skewed to benefit women?
It’s not. It’s skewed to benefit men. The majority of my readers (at least the ones that are most vocal!) are men. Men are still in the majority of the RPG playing population and the geek population at large. With the prices as is, I’m hovering at just about a 50/50 split between guy geeks and girl geeks. If I evened out the prices, GeekMMM would be a sausage fest, and I’m sure you’re all very familiar with how good your chances are of getting a date when you’re attending a sausage fest.
(Unless you’re a sausage who is also into other sausages…)
So, let the tacos of the world have our free drinks and our cheap admission rates. In the end, you’re the ones that benefit.
About e
Probably not the greatest analogy, as Ladies Nights usually end up being even bigger sausage fests than normal, as they get filled with guys who only come out to hit on all of the ladies, who then stay away.
Whereas the downsides of Ladies Night at the bar don’t apply at all to GeekMMM.
Also, on the haircut topic, our hair is far less complicated than female haircuts. I don’t know of many male hairstyles that require more than a pair of scissors and a set of electric clippers. Female hair, in addition to there being more of it, is why the hairdresser’s table is full of all sorts of tools, only some of which I know what they are.
Female haircuts have curling, straightening, layering, feathering… straight razors for some reason.
There is a real reason our haircuts are cheaper.
I’m not really a drinker (if at all), but while acting as a sober buddy (which was, really, ALWAYS), no matter which country I was in,if it was Ladies’ Night, the clubs were always, ALWAYS filled with guys looking for girls to hit on. I’d say 8:1 at the worst.
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A little off-topic, but while I was hanging out in Spain, one of the nearby bars decided to host a “Sailors’ Party”. Knowing how dumb some of the people I worked with could be, I decided to stay just outside the bar.
Then, “I Will Survive” started playing.
And I swear to Batman, every last sailor in there, be they English, American, Greek, Italian, or Spaniard, started singing along, reached over each other’s shoulders, and started dancing along to the song.
THE WHOLE SONG.
.-= Sharky´s last blog ..blah =-.
@Graham – I’ll agree PARTLY on the hair thing. BUT… for a long while when I was in college, I had super long hair (past my waist). When I got a haircut, it was just “trim off the ends and make it even”. If a guy with super long hair came in and got the same exact cut, he’d be charged less. Luckily that’s changing (and more men are getting the crazy haircuts, too).
@e -
Okay, agreed for that hairstyle, for sure. But in general, women’s ‘dos are far more complex.
Even the “crazy haircuts” for men are exceptionally simple to cut. It’s all in the gel and styling, in general.
Y’know, unless we’re talking the “emo” cuts, or hair metal. Those should cost more, but are also not common.
I guess that’s the other part. There are only so many ways that the majority of men cut their hair. You don’t have to know nearly as many styles as you need to cut female hair.
I’m not sure that women’s hair cuts really have anything to do with the justification of them acquiring cheap alcohol..If you’re going to randomly justify such things with unrelated tangents, employers paying less for women due to pregnancy starts making sense.
If you want equality, you should probably stop inviting unequality?
No offense, but the real reason such pricing occurs is because of the underlying economic factors. The whole ‘ladies will come if it’s cheap’ is entirely true. The reason the question gets asked is not that men don’t understand the underlying economic/social reasons…it’s that the feel it’s extraordinarily unfair that those reasons exist, and that those pricing decisions were made in order to PERPETUATE such reasons.
You’ve essentially told us to suckup social inequality between genders and eat it, throwing in some non-related tangential justification to make the rest of us laugh.
The real fact is this kind of attitude really does breed to resentment and malediction you see in those ‘reviled’ PUA articles that label women as objects. It’s part of that seething, underlying hatred that caused that man in Atlanta to shoot up dozens of young women in a gym.
I think that yes, it is essential to break it to men, and geeks in particular that women are going to experience favoritism in this sort of thing, but the sort of…giddy glee you presents those circumstances are just and correct is well, simply rather alienating.
It’s true there is no equality, but no reason to grind our faces in it like dogs in the dirt. Keep in mind many of your dear readers, have faced prejudice in real and no uncertain terms before. Segregation for something you can’t control is something that leaves a foul taste in the mouth. The idea that it can’t be changed, can’t be mitigated, is frankly, the seed of something that can lead to drastic action or pure and unadulterated violence. Injustice is an extremely bitter pill to swallow.
I expect this sort of off the cuff, suck it up, that’s the way it is brother, smack the woman on the ass and get’er drunk attitude from a typical PUA site, but really..I expected something of a more..aware treatment of the subject here.
Now I will start of by saying that I do have a bachelor’s in economics so I do have a solid understanding of the basic economic logic behind 3rd degree price discrimination (ex: cheaper movie tickets for seniors on a fixed income).
So I will admit I find this to be a bit of a sticky wicket. On the one hand I understand what some business are trying to do by varying their prices to get more customers. Another classic example is going to the dry cleaners (got I hate being on the female side of this one). Women’s items are more expensive to have cleaned than men’s. Now there are two ways to look at this difference, the first being the logical women’s clothing are harder to clean because they are made of different materials that require more work (but if this were the case then why not charge by type of cloth and not the gender of the person wearing them). The other side of the coin is that women are willing to pay more for their clothes to be clean (ie they are not as sensitive to an increase in prices as men). This usually results in gender based pricing for services such as dry cleaning and hair cuts.
Now on the topic of the ladies night, I will admit that I have never been to one as the thought of going to a club or a bar was always very unappealing. I have always had the impression that I wouldn’t really fit in at one of these social gathers as I don’t really care to drink and I am not much of a dancer. But I just got back from the Star Trek Convention in Vegas and I can say from wandering through Caesar’s Palace on Saturday night that I most certainly wouldn’t be getting into any of the high end clubs. These types of events aren’t really the kind of place that you would find me.
But if you want my thoughts on whether or not E is doing the right thing by having a different pricing structure for women on her newsletter, I don’t see a problem. To me this is more an matter of business than equality. I am sure that no one will disagree that there is a need for a balance in readership for everyone to be happy with the experience. But since there are more geek guys than girls (and most geek girls I know are attached) it would be difficult for this balance to occur naturally. So incentives can be used to ensure that all parties have the best possible experience.
It is a matter of business and economics if you ask me (it just happens to fall in the classic realm of cases that deal with 3rd degree price discrimination between genders).
Well, I personally fail to see the problem with this as it pertains the GeekMMM, as making the prices equal would only mean that guys would benefit from the service less. I suppose the same could be said for “girls nights,” though I don’t much care because I have no desire to go to bars regardless of the price. One could make a list of all the ways the genders are unequal, and that list would be very long for both sides. If one took everything into account, I don’t know that either gender would be clearly favored. In the end, is getting free, cheap drinks really such an injustice? It seems to me that there there are much more important things in the world for one to be concerned about.
This kind of makes me think of black people making racist jokes.
You know, I love the comment sections of these articles…everyone bring up such great points & discussion. =)
To start off, I just want to state that I believe in equality, or at least as close as we can reasonably get to that. However I also believe in fairness too, meaning none of that “I’m willing to reap the benefits but not willing to pay any of the costs” attitude. This is merely where I stand regarding equality & fairness; it’s not a commentary of where I think it is.
Now messerole brought up favoritism to women, equality, and inequality breeding resentment & alienation. I wonder is some of the disdain or resentment from guys steming from the perception of unfairness in the dating process? Because it can be easily perceived that it’s harder for a guy to “court” with a woman than it is for a woman to “court” with a guy….using the “traditional” dating model. What I mean by “traditional” is a bunch of men (suitors) all try woo a woman, the woman gets to choose the man. So it can be perceived in this model that a man has to compete against the other men and work hard to impress the woman, whereas the woman just needs to choose who she fancies. So anyways, could this perceived unfairness be where some of the resentment for a guy is coming from?
I understand the real world isn’t fair, and I understand the logic of the above model. If it’s the prevalent model of how things are today, then I know tough…that’s just how it is. However the question is should it be that way? All of us have been born into this system of inequality, we didn’t set it up…it’s a throwback to previous generations. With the gender lines starting to blur, shouldn’t things be more equal. If so, how do we go about making it happen? I agree with Dice_Girl saying dry cleaners should charge according to clothing & not gender, but how do we fix the economics behind it so it’ll be fair? Or do we just not even try and just accept it for how it is?
I do have to say though, when E raised the price to $10 for guys, I was surprised to see women went to $5 from free. I guess I had thought women would have stayed free (kind of like some cover charges to clubs). I was glad the charge to women went to $5, as that’s more fair than free. However I’m curious what it’d be like if it remained free for women. Wouldn’t that mean there’d be a higher ratio of women to guys here? That would mean the dating model would be reversed, the guys get to choose. Yeah that seems less fair to the women, but at the same time they got in for free. I think it would have been interesting. =)
So it can be perceived in this model that a man has to compete against the other men and work hard to impress the woman, whereas the woman just needs to choose who she fancies. So anyways, could this perceived unfairness be where some of the resentment for a guy is coming from?
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Nail on the head, sir.
That’s exactly where the resentment comes from. It isn’t anything new, it’s something hardwired into the genes of nearly every male primate out there. If a male can’t find a mate, they become aggressive and eventually exiled from the social fold. Further inequalities are just tiny tiny pinpricks along the ego.
In modern society we’re told for so long by movies and TV and society that it’s bad to be aggressive and ‘take advantage’ of women. It’s quite a shock when you’ve trained out those instincts for so long and find that’s exactly what you need.
I agree that this is probably where the resentment comes from. Although I have to admit that the resentment on the guy being in charge of this process can be equal frustrating from our side as well. When I was in high school I tried to ask a guy to a dance (in part because I was never asked by anyone I wanted to go with and also I figured we were past these stereotypes) and it was painful. I never was successful and eventually stopped trying (if I really wanted to go I would go alone or more often just find some random job that needed to be filled).
I would love to believe that we can move past this preception that the guy has to ask the girl because then more women would understand (much like I do) how truly painful the process is.
This also leads me to wonder if part of the resentment doesn’t also stem from the guy generally pays for the date in addition to have to ask the girl?
So, if there’s a whole lot of competition, and there’s a big area with them in it, why not break out the BFG 10,000 to remove the competition? hehe… just HYPOTHETICALLY now..
As for the Geek MMM, $5 for life isn’t bad, but the price difference does rankle, ESPECIALLY because many online sites do that as well. Now, it has been a while since I did the research, but straight women do get in free to some dating sites with pay-level access, while guys have to shell out the money to talk to the ladies. (I think flirt.com was one of these)
Sometimes I wish real life was like that one sliders episode where dudes were scarce (because of a virus that attacked those with Y chromosomes). It would certainly be interesting to be in demand….
Bearing in mind that I stumbled across this article randomly and I have not participated in your site before, I have some input to the inequality thing. I agree that things will never be fully equal. The inequality in haircut prices is only the tip of the iceberg. Women not only pay more for our haircuts, we pay to get things waxed (and that ain’t cheap, boys!), nails done, eyebrows plucked, etc. If we get our hair colored, we pay for that AND expensive hair care products so the color doesn’t fade quickly, we can control frizz, add volume, whatever our particular hair needs. We have products to keep our skin smooth (ever priced eye cream?) and blemish free – not to mention make-up. Lotions to keep our body smooth and smelling pretty. Then we have to get cute, stylish clothes that flatter our particular figure and hide our flaws. Oh, and sexy bras with matching undies. Have a wander through Victoria’s Secret and check out the price of a nice bra, boys. Jewelry, perfume, purses. And don’t even get me started on shoes to go with it all. We do all this so we can feel sexy for ourselves and hopefully attract a decent guy.
You guys get your hair cut, buy some jeans, t-shirts, maybe a couple of nicer shirts and black slacks, three pairs of shoes, socks and boxers/briefs. One or two jackets. Maybe some cologne. So yeah, it’s unequal. If your drink costs a bit more, I’d say that’s fair.
Keep in mind that I’m a down-to-earth geeky gal with a geek boyfriend. I’m not some Barbie doll that has to have expensive designer things. But all the above is pretty much expected of women – especially in the dating scene. So the next time you want to whine about having to pay $5 more for a drink, remember that she spends about $200 more a month more than you to look the way she does.