Surrender to the Patriarchy if you want to have fun

Surrender as defined by Merriam Webster is “the action of yielding one’s person or giving up the possession of something, especially into the power of another.” I think this definition puts my words into terms of my thinking. To “go out” or “party” as a woman, you need to surrender your decision-making power or alter it to fit the constructs of our misogynistic society laid by the patriarchy.

Essentially, play into the constructs of the patriarchy, and you can have a good time. Want to keep your opinions front and center? Pay the price. It’s almost like in order to have fun for “free”, you need to table your opinions for the night, check the self-respect or any dignity you might have, and let it all go for some fun.

It’s cultural at this point. Women have the ability to play around with their own stereotypes in order to get into clubs, bars, and events underage, and can do the same to get free drinks, a seat at the table, and a good time.

Emily Ratajowski’s book, My Body, was eye opening.

Ratajowski wrote about stories and instances in her life as a model and woman, explaining how she’d been sexualized, didn’t feel comfortable in her body at times, and viewed her body in terms of the patriarchy- not her own. Reading her words gave me a sense of comfort because I could relate to so many of her experiences. Whether it be her interactions with men over the years, or the way she felt about her body, I could relate to the words of Ratajowski like no other writing I’d ever read. But that just goes to show how universal these experiences, around one’s body, sexuality, and how they’re perceived by society are — they transcend generations, ethnicities, and location, united by the thread of identifying as a woman.

Reading Ratajowski’s book made me realize that as a college freshman, I’d already been sexualized to a point beyond my understanding. I’d been sexually assaulted, and didn’t even identify the instance as assault until weeks later, and several conversations with friends. I had an “oh, shit.” moment, where I didn’t even realize what happened to me until much longer after the fact.

Being a girl in a big city like NYC is undeniably fun. Men buy you drinks, promoters take you out, and there’s always something going on. There’s the timeless trope as girls giggle “I’ve never had to pay to get into a club.” And although there might not be as much up front cost, nothing is really free, especially in NYC.

The more that I started to think about what had happened to me, and other girls that I knew, my first “city girl” semester in New York City, didn’t appear to be “all that.” I began to realize that my experiences were somewhat universal, and not in a good way. What I realized later was that more people that I thought had “oh shit” moments like these, and it was almost a constant in our lives at this point.

Going to a city school can be exciting, fun, and full of opportunity. And it truly is. However, as romanticized as the city school experience is, there is a lot that it fails to mention.

I’m a student at Barnard College at Columbia University in the City of New York City. Within just my first semester, a lot happened, from suicide attempts, friends getting roofied on the daily, and worst of all, a continuous pattern of sexual assault.

As unfortunate as it is, this is common in college life, anywhere you go. But specifically at city schools, parties and student life are rarely events on campus. Students end up going out to bars, clubs, and venues underage because there’s simply nowhere else to go: places where they areare mixed with full fledged adults.Worst of all, there is no formal institution to hold these individuals accountable of sexual assault. Often, those performing or attempting assault in a city setting are well beyond college years, have positions in professional settings, and are usually a lot more believable than something that a college student claims on the slim chance that a case of sexual assault does get reported.

Let’s break down these costs, and think about this quantitatively. One’s “investment cost” would be the minimum cost of a night out in order for women to look and get ready a certain way due to implicit patriarchy entails. The reality is, clubs and bars expect and require women to look a certain way to get in- and not that many people initially at least know about this. Clubs will quite literally turn you away if you don’t meet the requirement, or possibly enforce or increase the cover charge to get into the club if you don’t dress the part. This includes a cute outfit ($15–100), makeup including hair and nails ($5–100), transportation potentially (probably public transportation which I will go into later- $2.75–40 depending on what you take), and maybe the occasional pregame shot or caffeine boost you need to get you going for the night.

What I failed to include in that breakdown was time (time is money as the cliche goes), but let’s just consider time as a commodity in this instance.

The next stop in this line of thought is returns.What do you get back from investing all of the time, money, and effort to go out? Do you truly get to have a good time, or do you unknowingly play into the constructs of society that dictate a narrative? That’s what I struggle with, however, because I’m not entirely sure you get amazing returns in most cases.

I, like many other women, like going out. And these “investment costs” I’m going over are investments in oneself: to feel good, own one’s power, and take over the night with your friends to have a good time. Most womens’ goal is to have fun, but the reality of the situation is that men take over the night. It starts with someone seemingly innocently dancing with you. Then it progresses to unwanted touches and advances. Maybe a drink from someone that isn’t necessarily your type but you’ll take the drink anyways. Now that man expects you to entertain him; the price for a drink. You might not know what’s in that drink, and might end up losing some of your inhibitions because of it. The list can go on and on. Women are disillusioned into thinking that men will be fun, whereas the returns aren’t that great for women in this situation. Through ubiquitous mini-vlogs on TikTok and a barrage of sponsored Instagram posts, women are led to believe that these male-dominated environments will be fun, or at the very least tolerable to the point where they can still have fun with their friend group; reality is, though, that the returns aren’t that great for women in this situation.

Something to factor into all of this is that women have insecurity built into their decision making by society. So the question extends beyond a monetary investment to go out, but rather an emotional investment. What am I willing to give up personally in order to have a good time without judgment?

What really constitutes the returns women get from a night out? Do women only experience them when they are asked out by men? Is it the amount of times a stranger buys them a drink?Is it how attractive the guy who asks you to go home with him is? Or is it the number of times you get groped in a club, after you tell himno?(He’ll probably think that you owe him something because he bought you a drink)

Looking back at our initial investment, one of the main- if not only — reasons women put so much effort into going out is to play into the constructs of the patriarchy.

The worst part is that any potential returns get canceled out with all of the

traumatic experiences, potential mental health problems, and surrendering of agency that you have to do on your end in order to have fun. It’s like, give up some of your decision making power- and don’t forget to make sure you’re inebriated while making these decisions — because that’s the only way you can really have fun.

So, maybe you’ll black out, have a good time, forget about whatever’s bothering you in life. Get to dress up, meet a cool person you might vibe with, have a great makeout session or some sex. I’m no hypocrite. I love going out as much as the next person. I’m just not sure if I truly do get to let go and have a good time considering what I have to give up.

NYC is so wild because every story you hear, every night out has some element of crazy stuff you’d never hear about anywhere else: free drinks for an entire group of college girls, a bouncer at a club inviting you in without a cover charge, a man following a group of 10 girls on the second day of freshman orientation. 11 people being sent to the hospital for alcohol poisoning a night on one campus. Someone getting sexually assaulted. Someone trying to kill themselves.

After a while, as you keep hearing the same stories over and over again, you become desensitized to it. It’s like the NYC sirens that eventually become “part of the ambiance.”. The fact of the matter is that we’ve all heard stories that are more or less crazy, so we’re never in a position to judge. But inside, we know that there might be better, but there’s also a lot worse out there.

NYC is known for its “go, go, go” mentality where everyone “gets over it and moves on,” with no time for grief, or to process the events.This leads to an overall lack of empathy within New Yorkers: sometimes the best thing is to leave the past in the past, to just keep living life and gain new experiences to cover up the unsavory narratives we’ve racked up.

I want to circle back to the point of being underage. Most college students in major cities have a fake ID, which is beyond necessary if you want to go out. But for girls, you can lower your blouse or raise your skirt so that the bouncer can overtly sexualize you in front of other people to gain access to a club. It’s yet another surrender to the patriarchy. We need fake IDs and shouldn’t. The song “Softcore” by the Neighborhood comes to mind, particularly the lyric; “are we too young for this?” There’s a clear and apparent price to have fun. Being too young and being exposed to such happenings at an early age is part of this, as appealing as it is to people like myself.

And say on the chance that something goes wrong. Someone gets assaulted, whether that be you, your friends, or someone in your circle. And chances are, by the time you graduate the answer will be “all of the above” to the question “who got assaulted”.The worst part is that most people try processing and moving on, because the terrible thing is that we know it’s going to happen again. It’s just the cost of being a woman at this point.

Say you want to acknowledge assault as part of your boundaries and your growth in the future. If a woman reveals this, or tells a potential male partner about sexual assault, there is a fine line between being seen as taken advantage of, or being labeled as a “whore” or “slut.” A simple survey of my male friends, asking them the question; “Do you think guys view girls that have been sexually assaulted as damaged?” revealed that in fact, they do. Even though a majority of them tried playing it off, saying it “depended case by case”, the answer stayed the same. Essentially, even if you’re vocal about your experiences, you’re damaged.

As someone who was assaulted, it’s hard to write these things. It’s hard to say that this is the reality behind the jeweled curtain of NYC. I always knew that these things happened to an extent. I just never thought that it’d be me.

The Subway and taking the Subway is overly romanticized in my opinion. It’s a very New York thing to do, yet I curl inside every time I take the Subway since I was assaulted in a Subway station.

Public transportation is supposed to be for the public to take, to provide a safe and convenient way to get where you need to go, at a reasonable price. But if you don’t take the $50–100 Uber at 2am after a night out, your experience might be very different. The fact is that not everyone has that money, and the Subway is usually close by when all you want to do is get home.

Don’t forget that on your way, no matter, day or night, you’re likely to get catcalled as a woman. Catcalling is essentially another term for street harassment, and is defined as making “a whistle, shout, or comment of a sexual nature to a woman passing by” by Oxford Dictionary. To several, catcalling might be seen as just a comment to ignore, but catcalling is harassment. And it seems that every girl knows a story about somebody who ignored a catcall, only to be harassed even more — and maybe assaulted. It knows no borders, with grown men catcalling young, underage girls just as much as women. No matter where you are, it never feels safe to get around as a woman.

That’s why male privilege is so nice sometimes. A personal example can be used to elaborate my point here. I was taking a walk around Riverside Park at 7pm in October with my male friend. The park is right by our campus, and we were just going over our day, and what was going on in our lives. On our way back around 8:30 pm, we were walking up the street to get out of the park and back to the main block. Standing mid street was a man that said verbatim to my friend; “Man, if you weren’t with that shawty right now I’d tap that ass right now and no one could stop me.” My friend chuckled it off as I kept walking in complete and utter silence. The entire way back, neither one of us said a word. When we got back to campus, I just gave my friend a long hug. I felt so unsafe at that moment, and couldn’t even imagine what could’ve happened if he wasn’t there.

The worst part is that this behavior isn’t just limited to after hours, or after the sun sets. I couldn’t recall one day where I haven’t been catcalled. Countless comments and remarks have left me desensitized to sexualization, and honestly, there’s not much you can say or do in the moment. The worst part is having friends with “normal” or “average” features complaining that they aren’t catcalled enough. It’s almost like being sexualized is supposed to be synonymous with a feeling of validation from men in the society that we live in.

So, it’s one thing to party, but getting there is a whole other story.

The title of this section itself feels like a trope. The patriarchy wants us to be simultaneously everything at once. We can be independent — just not too independent. We can party, just not too much. We can be smart, but not as smart as our male colleagues. We can have sex, just not a “whorey” amount of sex.

So the truth is, screw it. Be smart and sexy. It’s ok! The patriarchy has us thinking that having fun and doing well or being a “good woman” is mutually exclusive. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

It’s okay to go out in your tightest clothes so that you feel hot on your night out. It’s also okay to stay in and binge watch “Grey’s Anatomy” with your best friends.

It’s okay to do whatever the hell you want. Part of breaking the centuries old standards of the patriarchy are to do it all, from having the career you want, life you want to live, and everything in between. We feel as though we need to categorize parts of ourselves, when we’re all multifaceted and can enjoy multiple things, just as our male counterparts do without any judgements.

This is a complicated issue. And I’d be remiss to say that I and other women don’t purposefully play into the constructs of the patriarchy in order to benefit. This is a reflection of my experiences in college in New York City. As someone that is from the tri-state area and still somewhat familiar with the New York City atmosphere, I was still overwhelmed and taken advantage of in the city setting. Take from this piece what you will. It has always been my goal to say it how it is, and transparently write about what is going on without any filters.

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