Ashley Mears: preference

Transcript context

…Putting aside your research interests, how much fun was it for you to be in these clubs? I always say I really wish that I had met these promoters when I was 18 because I was in New York. I was studying at Hunter College for a year, and if I had met the promoters then, it would have been fantastic. [laughs] I would have gotten to travel and eat and drink for free and stay out all night and enjoy. But when I was going back into this world of New York when I was 30, 31, and 32, it was pretty difficult. It was pretty grueling. Just to put it in perspective, the dinner with the promoters would start at around 10:00 at night. We head to a club at around midnight, and we stay there until 3:00 am. And the high heels are very high. The expectation is that women wear these really high heels. So it’s physically hard to keep up and be in these spaces. I think that for some of the younger women, that’s their thing. They love house music, or they love hip-hop music. They love to stay out late, get dressed up, be looked at, get drunk, have drugs. It’s fantastic for a young person. It’s hard to convey that kind of fun. And it was hard for me being a sober 30-year-old to also feel it. Why don’t they just pay the women to go to the clubs? As you know, in economics it’s typically assumed a cash payment is more efficient than free tuna rolls. What stops that from happening?…

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