Memo to Den Hollander: STFU
In the August 6th issue of the New Yorker, on page 22, you will find a Talk of the Town tid bit featuring Roy Den Hollander - the would be abolisher of Ladies’ Nights. Hollander’s federal lawsuit claims that special incentives for women, such as reduced admission fees and drink specials at bars and night clubs, are discriminatory based on sex.
I agree.
Personally, if ladies’ night went the way of the Kyoto Protocol, I wouldn’t shed a tear. In fact, a placard declaring drink specials for the fairer sex is an invitation to go elsewhere, so I don’t mind much if Hollander’s suit has legs.
Where I take umbrage is his invocation of Seidenberg and DeCrow v. McSorley’s Old Ale House (1970) as a precedent. Hollander’s main argument is based on fiscal favoritism, whereas the McSorley’s case dealt with equal access to a public venue, the outcome of which had obvious ramifications that extended beyond an East Village pub.
If Hollander wins, and ladies’ nights are abolished nationwide, where are the larger implications for fiscal equality? Women still earn 44-77%, on average, of what a man earns, women pay 68% more for healthcare out of pocket, and women spend about $800 more on clothes, beauty products, and accessories than men. So, catching a $10 break on a cover charge at Lotus doesn’t really seem like a societal injustice that might merit a federal lawsuit.
I wholeheartedly agree. I think it would be fabulous to make as much as a man that does my exact job. It’s time men realized that just by giving birth we can kick their asses, when they complain about knee pain and back pain there are women in giving birth all over the world. with no drugs. they need to stop whining and realize we are just as worthy, intelligent, and strong as they are.
Abolish ladies night, who really cares? it’s just there to get people to go to these places and so ugly men can get girls by either getting them drunk or putting roofies in their drinks. (and of course this is not all a blanket statement, there are men in the world that are total gentlemen too. there just needs to be a bigger ratio of them to the a-holes and losers.)
As a total gentlemen (as Lynn puts it) I would preffer if ‘Ladies Night’ was indeed abolished nationwide.
First and foremost it is important, especially in this country, to uphold the constitution in all circumstances of life. I am neither a feminist nor a shovenist, but I am a constitutionalist and abide by the law.
If Ladies Night were in fact abolished, this will not change much. In an age when feminism has gone above and beyond its original purpose to bring equality and justice to all, we must continue their tradition even in these clubs.
Another fact of life is that women (just like men) want to have casual sex. This can be achieved presently at the clubs. If Ladies Night was abolished, the same women would still be out whoring themselves out. If ladies night was abolished, then perhaps there would be fewer ladies out drinking free drinks which ultimately are paid by men overall.
If ladies night is a means for women to have a night they can go out to drink for free, whereas anyother night they don’t go out, here lies another argument against ladies night. I would rather be in a club without women in there just to have a free drink!
Women who feel like going out, can still go elsewhere at night if the ladies night is abolished. And after all, the nightclub is not the only place in the world to meet a person of the opposite sex.
As for the argument about:
”
earn 44-77%, on average, of what a man earns, women pay 68% more for healthcare out of pocket, and women spend about $800 more on clothes, beauty products, and accessories than men.
”
you could have just as easily said:
“earn 21-100%, on average, of what a man earns”
Same value, if you consider the ‘average.’ Do the math honey. And besides, if the world didn’t expect a woman to take out a large portion of her career to at least have one child, there wouldn’t be anymore people now would there? The traditional role of man as the bread winer isn’t all that bad. It gives society a chance to grow with the care of a mother, if tht isn’t too much to ask for. In the care of the mother, perhaps kids these days would have some more respect, have better values and morals, not be suffering from some hyper ADD disfuntion. etc. etc. etc…
As for the health care, its true, women cary babies, have menstral cycles, and other things a man doesnt have to deal with. But in that 68% more, a large proportion is in fact the cost of health care for the woman carying the baby. Don’t be a single mother if you plan on complaining about this number. Don’t get pregnant, don’t go clubbing. Or if children were raised right and grew up to be responsible adults, the ‘couple’ having the baby would share the expense, or more likely than not the breadwiner of the hosue would pay the bill.
As for the 800 dollar calculation, I could just laugh at that. What is more attractive than an honest person? What is more attractive than someone who doesn’t hide their true height, their true weight and skin colour and hair colour and lip colour, etc etc etc. If you think I am out of touch, think again.
It’s true, in capitalism companies can and will do anything to sell a product. Even if it means telling people that they would not be liked if they are too fat, or too ugly, or if they don’t have the newest cellphone or car, or whatever they are trying to sell. And targetting women becomes easier since it has been scientificaly proven that women are in fact more sensitive. And so provoking these emotions in women is easier to advertisers. This is my theory why women buy 800 bukcs more than man.
And by the way, you are probably reading my whole posting cursing me after everyline. But you fail to realize that you are in fact the hypocrite in the picture. You are the one complaining about the lack of gentlemen in society. Real gentlemen don’t go to Night Clubs too loud to have a conversation anyway.
High class bitch is more like it.
You fuckin communist. You purge all comments you don’t like because they may have a valid point against your argument? You delete replies to people who sound more intelligent and have a better idea of the reality of things, who actualy put effort into their writting and write double anything you have writen.
Communist sensor! Castro, Stalin, Tito, these are people that opress freedom of speech, and freedom of thought. And now you.
bitch. delete this too mother fuckers.
Alexander - chill. I didn’t check my comment moderation for 24 hours. I doubt that makes me a bitch, just someone who happened to be busy. For 24 hours.
Comments are moderated for first time users - after you’re approved the first time, you can comment all you like, un-moderated.
Fucking hell.
Anyway, your first comment (essay?) is ridiculous and most of it (what I skimmed anyway) is unfounded, but like assholes, everyone has an opinion.
Your second comment makes you the hypocrite - real gentlemen don’t flip the fuck out when they think they’ve been ignored for 24 hours.
First off let me say that Den Hollander is an idiot, chauvenist moron and I could barely tell in the New Yorker article if the quotes were real or fake.
Alexander-
You say “ladies night is a means for women to have a night they can go out to drink for free, whereas any other night they don’t go out, here lies another argument against ladies night. I would rather be in a club without women in there just to have a free drink!”
Several things that don’t make sense about this, but we will start with the big one. The argument Hollander poses is that women get reduced admission, not that they drink for free. Let’s just cast this aside however and pretend that its all about freebies, in which case your article crumbles again. Why? There are plenty of opportunties for men to drink free whether this is on sports nights or men’s suiting events (yes they do have these) or mens grooming (again-these exist).
The thing is-in theses instances it is not gender discrimination and it is not political. It is merely economic. The way “free drinks,” aka open bar works, is that an alcohol sponsor will go into a venue and pays a certain amount to serve their product. No bar is just giving away alcohol for free. If the product is a liqueur or a drink targeted towards women they will most likely bring in manicurists, clothes vendors or other “girls night out” type entertainment to attract people who will enjoy and become loyal consumers to their product. If its a whiskey or scotch, they will bring in entertainment geared towards men.
So basically, if your still with me here, what laying this entire thing out leads to is an entirely new question that is actually at the heart of the entire “Girls ight Out Debate”: Are products geared towards a specific gender and demographic sexist? Should they not be allowed to throw events for consumers or advertise towards a certain gender? Is that inequality?
Answer being: No. The whole argument is ridiculous.
Twenty One Indicators Of Systemic Discrimination Against Men… ..read and enjoy
1. WEALTH: Women hold 65% of the country’s wealth [Fortune Magazine] 2. CHILD CUSTODY: Women receive custody of 92% of the children of divorce and illegitimacy, and men only 4%. [Department of Health & Human Services] 3. INCOME: Men constitute 60% of workplace hours, work longer hours, work harder, and are more qualified, rarely file sexual discrimination or harassment lawsuits or take pregnancy leave, yet earn only 42% more than women [Dept. Labor] 4. SUICIDE: Men’s suicide rate is 4.6 times higher than women’s [Dept. Health & Human Services — 26,710 males vs 5,700 females] 5. LIFE EXPECTANCY: Men’s life expectancy is seven (7) years shorter than women’s [National Center for Health Statistics — males 72.3 yrs vs females 79 yrs] yet receive only 35% of government expenditures for health care and medical costs. 6. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: Men are discriminated against BY DESIGN through affirmative action. 7. FEDERAL TAXES: Even though men pay 115% of federal income taxes women constitute 11% more of the voters. 8. VOTE: Because there are 11% more female than male voters, males have little to no influence on how the male tax dollar is spent. 9. WAR: Men, not women, fight and die in battle [Dept. Defense — Vietnam Casualties 47,369 men vs 74 women] while women sue the taxpayer when they have their butt pinched. 10. WORKPLACE FATALITIES: Men account for more than 95% of workplace fatalities. 11. MURDER: Men are murdered at a rate almost 5 times that of women [Dept. Health & Human Services — 26,710 men vs 5,700 women] 12. JURY BIAS: Women are acquitted of spousal murder at a rate 9 times that of men [Bureau Justice Statistics — 1.4% of men vs 12.9% of women] 13. COURT BIAS: Men are sentenced 2.8 times longer than women for spousal murder [Bureau Justice Statistics — men at 17 years vs women at 6 years] 14. JUSTICE SYSTEM BIAS: Even though the amount of the average “child support payment” due from women is half the amount due from men, and even though women are twice as likely as men to default on those payments, fathers are 97% of “child support” collections prosecutions [Census Bureau] 15. WELFARE: Even though men are the recipients of less than 10% of all welfare disbursements, men are required to refund welfare payments made to women. 16. SECONDARY EDUCATION: Even though zero percent of American 12th grade girls were able to correctly answer basic math and physics questions, less than one quarter of America’s secondary and elementary school teachers are men. 17. HIGHER EDUCATION: There are more than 200 all-female colleges for women and now not one single all-male college for men. 5.8% fewer men than women are enrolled in 4 year colleges, even though two thirds of those who score higher than 550 in SAT Math are males. In 1993 only 44.5% of college enrollment were men, and that figure has declined since then. Only 45.8% of of bachelor’s degrees were conferred to men in 1992, even though 98.2% of the top fiftieth percentile of the GRE are men, and ZERO PERCENT of American high school girls correctly answered 28 out of 67 TIMSS advanced math questions. Only 38.4% of private 4 year college students were men as of 1990, and this figure has declined since then. 18. LEGAL SYSTEM BIAS: 96% of physical altercations resulting in injury to a spouse occurs AFTER the date of separation. [Read: spousal abuse laws that pretend that husbands are dangerous discriminate against husbands when we know that only a very small percent of domestic violence is associated with them]. [Chadwick and Heaton, “Statistical Handbook of the American Family”] 19. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: Even though study after study shows that women are the majority of the initiators of domestic violence, and 58% of the above mentioned physical altercations are initiated by the female, Congress passed the obviously anti-male VAWA and VAWA II.which are known would make the problem far worse. [Read: despite the fact we discriminate against husbands in protective orders, women still cause more than half of domestic altercations because they know they can get away with it]. 20. CHILD VIOLENCE: Even though mothers commit 55% of child murders and biological fathers commit 6%, even though NIS-3 shows that Mother-only households are 3 times more fatal to children than Father-only households, children are systematically removed from the natural fathers who are their most effective protectors and men are imprisoned at rate 20 times that of women. 21. FAMILY BREAKDOWN: The US Surgeon General notes that divorce is more harmful to a man’s health than smoking tobacco, yet as much as $1.3 Trillion of federal expenditures accomplish little else than undermine family stability. 22. WOMEN PILOTS: Even though women pilots have an accident rate four times that of men pilots, federal laws require that airlines risk the safety of passengers and hire women pilots anyway. 23. WOMEN DRIVERS: Even though the crash rate of women drivers is twice that of men drivers, and even though drinking alcohol increases the crash rate of men by only 5%, the majority of those imprisoned under DUI laws are men, and women are almost never imprisoned for their much higher number of non-alcohol-related crashes. 24. INCARCERATION: Even though feminists brag that 1.4 million American brides commit adultery, and even though women file more than 90,000 false allegations of rape, every year, only 99,000 of the 1.8 million Americans behind bars are women.