The politics of ladies’ night

An Op-Ed in The Baltimore Sun today, Women as bait, takes issue with a local bar’s version of ladies’ night:

During “Ladies Lockdown,” held twice a year from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. on a Saturday night, only women are admitted – mostly the University of Maryland students who are the principal clientele of this popular hangout – and they can drink virtually for free.
…young women are encouraged to drink as much as possible until 11 p.m., when young men arrive expecting to find them in an accommodating state.
Whatever the motive, hosting such evenings is an irresponsible business practice that at best encourages binge drinking and at worst has predatory overtones.

Irresponsible, yes. Predatory? I don’t know. The whole ladies’ night thing is something I gave a lot of thought to back in my SUNY Albany days. Dear lord, was a lot of drinking going on there.
Clearly ladies’ night is a way to get more gals to the bar because the reasoning is the guys will follow. And I agree that encouraging binge drinking (which is so 1998) is kind of gross. But when the argument shifts to the idea that bar owners are trying to get women drunk to set them up as “bait� or easy targets for sexual propositioning (or assault), shit gets a little complicated. I mean, as much as folks may not like it, alcohol is used by young and older people alike to help move things along socially.
Unfortunately, there are many alcohol-related rapes—especially on college campuses. So binge drinking is a real concern. But positioning any woman who is out having fun as a potential victim just because she’s drunk is really problematic. First of all, it assumes that we’re all victims-in-waiting who shouldn’t be drinking:

Here’s a suggestion: Don’t single women out, ply them with beer and shots, and turn them loose late on a Saturday night.

Turn us loose?
This kind of thinking also uses alcohol as a diversion—the real focus should be on perpetrators and the culture of rape. Once the argument is about being out drinking, you get the whole women-should-know-better nonsense. But then again I have friends that would argue that ladies’ night is not just an innocuous bar promotion, but a way to facilitate women getting more than a little buzzed—but dropping down drunk—for easy targeting. Thoughts?