On a Sunday night at around 9pm, you’ll inevitably find me in front of the mirror, trying to make myself look tolerable. This is fun, in a way – I get to exercise my creativity in the way I choose to look. It’s also a bit annoying, though. I don’t really have time to spare on making massive improvements to my appearance. I feel like I should be working, or just doing something more useful with my life.

The thing that makes me slightly angry is that this culture of dressing up exists for girls where it is conspicuously absent for guys. If I beautify myself to go clubbing, then surely I am conforming, whether I always realise it or not, to the notion I need to change myself in order for guys to find me attractive.

“There’s also the fact that you’re dressing up for something that is often quite sweaty and gross”

It comes down to the basic question of why clubbing exists. Is it for young people to expend energy and spend time with their friends? Or, for guys to pick up girls? Or, now – for girls to pick up guys, or guys guys, or girls girls? When I dress up, does it put me in a position of power? Perhaps, but the fact remains that girls have to ‘transform’ to meet the standards of this position of power, where guys are already there simply by virtue of their biology. The club as metaphor for society as a whole, one might say.

There’s also the fact that you’re dressing up for something that is often quite sweaty and gross. It’s different to wearing a nice dress to a fancy dinner because you want to look beautiful for yourself. I guess we always moderate our appearance because we know people are watching – dressing at all, not just dressing up, is a performative thing. This just becomes more of a problem with clubbing because the reason for us changing our appearance is already predefined.  

I never went clubbing much before I came to Cambridge. I’d also never made claims to being a massive feminist; I find the word quite problematic, not least because it initially suggested to me a fight for rights that I never felt to be lacking in my life. Attending an all-girls school where nobody ever told me that I wouldn’t be able to do anything, I never felt confined by my gender. I’m not really one to polemicise; I had just assumed that feminism was something of which I personally had no need.  

It was only on coming to Cambridge that I realised that I, the woman, am undermined by a system of gaping catacombs in a world which I thought could never be anything but equal. It’s little things, really, that have switched on the flashing light in my brain. A supervisor commenting on the fact that I’d referred to ‘the reader’ in my essay as ‘he’ rather than ‘she’. Realising that, when I add the feminine ‘e’ onto a past participle in French, I am conforming to the idea that the female exists only in relation to the male.

“I don’t really enjoy adapting myself to please other people, especially in a world replete with givens about women”

And hence, on going out, I find myself thinking: why should I be the addition here too? Why do I have to make more effort than boys? Because the trouble is that now, this culture exists among women too – we impose it on each other. It’s not that my friends pressurise me at all. But the feeling is in the air, and I feel that if I don’t conform, then I am the boring one, the unattractive one, the one who’s dragging down the mood because, really, I’d rather just be in my pyjamas.

The typical response to these pressures would be, I suppose, that we as women should be comfortable in and proud of our bodies. Inhabit them with a confident sense of our sexuality. Use them to our advantage. Today, girls go clubbing to meet guys just as much as the reverse.

However, it’s difficult to separate this from the fact that the concept of ‘the club’ is founded on a predatory binary, and that girls are expected to display more flesh in accordance with this binary, even if the predator-prey relationship is reversed. And, we can get a bit tired of this kind of female empowerment – at least, I do. It’s all a bit Angela Carter, a bit second-wave … and, is it getting us anywhere?

I used my writing of this article as an excuse to introduce some healthy feminist polemic into my mostly-female group of friends. ‘Since I never normally wear makeup or make that much effort with what I wear, it’s nice sometimes to dress up and know that people will find me that bit more attractive’ said the sporty one. From another: ‘Going out is an excuse to wear certain clothes and to spend longer on my makeup, which I like to do regardless.’ My friend at Durham chipped in: ‘The guys in my house try, even though it doesn’t look like it … like choosing the right shirt.’

Pack behaviour: the sartorial tribes of a Cambridge night-out

So, what would be my solution? I’m quite an advocate of not trying that hard when going clubbing. I don’t really enjoy adapting myself to please other people, especially in a world replete with givens about women. I know that guys, too, are not free of aesthetic pressures in the clubbing environment – even if wearing a nice shirt isn’t quite the same as wearing a strappy, low-cut top.

Perhaps it’s important to see ourselves, not as men and as women, but as people, separate from our biology. In the words of Simone de Beauvoir: ‘On ne nait pas femme, on le devient’ (One is not born, but rather becomes, woman). I realise, however, that this is rather abstract. Fundamentally, we’ll carry on clubbing, and the problems with it can’t be philosophised away. Maybe a consciousness of the problem is enough to slow the objectification in its tracks. If we are aware then, at least in our heads, we do not fully conform