lasertag

So I went to lasertag recently and the place exhibited a really strange juxtaposition. It was crazy-inclusive, such that the header image on the website/the safety briefings/the paintings on the walls all featured people of all genders and colors and body types....

main banner on website

So yay, applause!

The scoreboard inside occasionally advertised "Ladies' Night" on Thursdays from 7-10 pm, with half price games for women. Again, yay, applause! They are encouraging and enabling women to run around and play with guns!

And then a few minutes later, I saw the fine print beneath the advert: "Ladies in groups not eligible."

WTF.

Skeeved. Out.

So now it all sorta comes off like ... some big trap. It seems just as predatory as ladies' nights at bars, which are designed to over-serve women and under-serve men (thereby facilitating impossibly-consensual sexual activities). The lasertag goal seems to be "increase the number of women without any support structure who come to a dark, male-dominated, testosterone-fueled environment, and make them feel comfortable in doing so, in such a way that the men know which day to go to have their choice of women to hit on."

I want to love this place, I really do, but, wow. With that one condition, they managed to twist all their fabulous female empowerment into male empowerment instead.