With Halloween just over a week away, NYU students can anticipate a plethora of party options to fill their weekend. Female students can also expect reduced or free admission to virtually every party next weekend. Girls getting in places for free is a widespread  practice that has become the status quo for partygoers.

From a solely economic standpoint, this price discrimination seems logical. If it is cheaper for women to get into parties, then more will come. If there are more women, men will be willing to pay full price in the hopes of pursuing them. This practice, which is overwhelmingly enforced by male club owners and fraternities, serves to manipulate the male-to-female ratio in a way that exploits the male’s belief that he will find a female partner. When a man pays to get into a party, he is paying, in part, for access to women he hopes to interact with. But when a woman gets into a party for free, it still costs her something — instead of money, she is paying with her sexual appeal.

There is certainly nothing wrong with the hook-up culture that is prevalent throughout both NYU Greek life and New York’s party scene. When it is framed in the context of this price discrimination, however, an uncomfortable truth emerges: this party fee structure reduces women to a commodity and perpetuates suffocating gender roles that dictate men as pursuers and women as the pursued. Of course, women could also be interested in finding a male partner at a party, but this system is clearly intended to exploit the stereotypical male’s belief that he will succeed.

This realization is nothing new, nor even especially shocking. It has been entrenched in our culture for a long time. Like many other examples of discrimination against men and subtle objectification of women, it goes unnoticed or is disregarded. The truth of the matter is that by entering parties for free, women are enabling this sexist practice to continue.

Why do women continue to do this? Forgoing the price of party admission is an obvious benefit, especially for a broke college student. Even if women did choose not to frequent establishments that discriminate based on gender, it would take an immense shift in culture and our national dialogue to eliminate the stereotypes that encourage this practice. By allowing this gender bias to continue, however, we are allowing an overtly sexist practice to remain a part of our society.

Ladies of NYU, when you make the decision to enter a party without paying next weekend, please consider what this price discrimination really represents.

A version of this article appeared in the Thursday, Oct. 23 print edition. Email Sharika Dahr at [email protected].