It's Just An Auction: Why The Club Is Every Feminist's Worst Nightmare

Writing this article makes me feel like a ginormous hypocrite.

I mean, I club! And though I don’t necessarily enjoy clubbing, I participate in the inherent objectification in order to score a few free drinks and easy access inside. But I never really thought about what this meant until last week.

Last week, I wrote a piece about why I prefer the bars over the clubs. I had never really considered why I felt that way until I wrote the article. I realized that the majority of my reasons were uniquely female.

I hate putting on an uncomfortable outfit just to mold into someone else’s standard of beauty. I hate feeling like I owe some creepy old guy the time because he let me sit at his table. I hate feeling like I have to ditch my guy friends to stand a chance at getting in.

There are just so many things I hate about going to the clubs, and most of them have to do with the fact that I’m a woman.

Women have by no means achieved everything we need to. But we've come so far. We've made so many strides.

Every day, young women are doing awesome things our grandmothers would have never thought imaginable.

That is, until midnight on Saturday, when it’s time for us to set our entire gender a few centuries back and hit the clubs.

Here are a few of the ways in which the clubs are really and truly every feminist’s worst nightmare.

We get in for being “hot.”

There’s nothing more sad than watching a long line of otherwise perfectly accomplished young women waiting anxiously in their tightest, most revealing outfits so a bouncer will deem them worthy of entering his precious club.

The last time I checked, no woman was having the ropes pulled back for her because she just graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. No, tonight she’s cutting the line and enjoying a free vodka cranberry because her tits look great.

We must adhere to one man-made standard of beauty.

Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes. That is, except for when you’re at the clubs -- where "beautiful" means a strict size two, double-D breasts and a skin-tight bodycon dress.

The drinks are free, but we pay a different price.

A promoter once demanded that my friend and I dance with two of the most terrifying men at his table -- simply because they had asked. They were his “big clients.”

These creepy rich dudes dropped $5k on the table, said we were hot enough to enjoy the free booze, and expected us to be "theirs" for the rest of the night.

We are essentially auctioned off to the highest bidder.

The hotter you are, the more options you have.

It's like this. One promoter is offering me a table at that new club in SoHo, another is offering me a table at that rooftop club where Leonardo DiCaprio will supposedly be, and then there are those banker guys we met the other week -- and they have a table at the same club. The question is, who can drop the most cash to buy me as table candy for the night?

Some promoter holds us prisoner.

My friends and I were at a club a few weeks ago, and a promoter told me I had to go get her when she started talking to a guy a couple of tables away.

“Tell her she has to come back here right now. That’s not one of my guys.”

That night, we were prisoners at his table. We were "his."

Lines are divided by gender.

In no way, shape or form do I hate men. I’m a feminist in that I want ALL of us to be equal.

So, yeah, I get bothered when nice, normal guys are forced to wait in line for hours in hopes of eventually being allowed the "privilege" to drop an exorbitant amount of cash to get through the door. Meanwhile, girls cut the line and get in free of charge ... all because they're wearing tight dresses.

We're turned against each other.

A coworker of mine went to the clubs on her birthday with some friends. The bouncer let her and her thin friends inside.

But her one overweight friend was not allowed entry. My coworker and her friends are not assh*les, so they obviously left with their friend. But my coworker told me that they couldn’t help but slightly resent the overweight friend for getting in the way of her birthday plans.

We sacrifice our own comfort.

If you were putting on your bodycon dress and sky-high stilettos because they made you feel your sexiest, I'd be all for it. But nine times out of 10, you aren’t. You're putting on the world’s most uncomfortable outfit because you know it will pique the interest of the creepy bouncer determining your fate.

It makes us question our own morals.

How much of myself am I willing to sacrifice for a fun night on the town?