Do the feminists realize the impact of women demanding that the guy pay for dates?

Question

This initial iniquity sets the tone and impacts the perception of women a lot. This is especially true with thinking men who are after something other than sex. Here's my main point: Demanding that the guy asks you out, then pays for dates (first 3 or more) has quite negative effects on her ability to demand she be respected as an equal. There are numerous other examples where women demand to be taken care of......but still expect to be treated as an equal, but this is certainly an example of this that comes up early and is extremely common. Of course there are exceptions, but I'm interested in whether women are aware of the effect of this expectation. Oh....and please don't start with the cost of attire and makeup.

Answer 1

I completely agree with your point and have asked myself this many of times.

Does the "true" feminists believe that a guy should pay for the dates and take care of the woman, or is this the mindset of women simply seeking more "equal" rights (I make a distinguished between the two)?

Answer 2

Surf and turf, that could be fifty bucks!!!!

Attire? Makeup? OK guys need to be smarter. I always start with DAYTIME dates. It's less pressure-filled since if you don't have too much in common you can tell yourself it wasn't really a date, and you might not even have to tell your friends about it in advance. It's also usually a lot cheaper. And there are better things to do where if it IS going well you can make something of it - go to a public garden, an art museum, that sort of thing - you can TALK to each other, unlike the movies or even a stuffy restaurant (can't talk with food in your mouth). And if you REALLY hit it off then maybe you go back to someone's place afterward, or if not, you haven't blown your night, you can still go out with your friends or watch the Sox.

Also you end up being able to do two-stop dates and can split the bill that way. You pay to get into the MFA, she pays for lunch at some pizza dive on Huntington Ave. - you both spent all of $20 maximum.

Bottom line it shouldn't matter who pays because your first couple of dates really shouldn't be triple-digit events, and if $20-$30 is meaningful to your date, so much so that he thinks he's getting sex because he spent the money, you should stop dating janitors.

Another tip re: daytime dates - - - swimming. OK? Swimming. Waterslide, beach. It's not just the immediate possibilities logistics-wise, it's the fact that you're spending time together in a more revealing setting and, hopefully, becoming even more comfortable with each other. It's not just the fact that you have to undress twice, it's the fact that once she's spent 2-3 hours with you in her bathing suit she stops fixating on whether you don't like her because of some mole on her ankle that you don't even notice or because of some other physical trait that you actually LIKE.

Answer 3

Wendy G. and Carrie. Inform yourselves in a evolutionary manner. A man " paying " for the first few dates, assuming more than one, is indicative of high interest. The male wishes to show that he is willing to commit resources to the wooing of the female. This can be forestalled by clear communication, but the male is evolved, to a greater or lesser extent to this resource commitment, so it is is possible signaled to him your lack of interest, when you refuse his resource offer. So much antagonism between the sexes could be ameliorated if only people would be evolutionarily, ultimately informed. Social science may think that humans are beyond our evolutionary history; they need to think again.

PS Wendy G. It looks like you have defeated that ideologue, Happy bullet, for the moment. Hope it is permanent.

PSS Wendy G. That is the very problem I face every day working on canid behavior; the variance between ultimate, evolutionary behavior and how that behavior plays out in the proximate, everyday sense. It often seems that the ultimate behavior is at odds with the proximate. Sometimes the ultimate behavior seems to become maladaptive, though that is more a evolutionary psychology position than scientific. Then, with any two organisms you have two things varying at the same time, under a normal distributive curve. So, the ultimate perspective ends up rather as the Hardy-Weinberg rule; a useful bench mark, but rather idealized.

Answer 4

I think most feminists do realize it, and lots of women don't like having their way payed for, whether for reasons of being a fair human being or having an independence streak or not wanting to be "that girl" or not owing the guy anything.

If you don't want to keep paying for dates, ask out girls who are interested in more than just a free meal. Also, keep in mind that it may just be a cultural issue here, and not hers. There's a dance you have to go through at the end of the date where the check comes, the guy grabs it, the girl offers to help, the guy waves her away, and the girl says thanks, and maybe she takes care of the tip. Maybe your dates just don't always know how to break out of that, particularly if she's worried about threatening your manhood.

Answer 5

I and most of my friends always pay our own way, in fact I have picked up the entire bill on occasion if I am with a male friend and we take turns. I believe in equality and I don't compromise these beliefs. Maybe before you ask a girl out you should let her honestly know how you feel and that way you can work through these issues before they turn into resentments on your part.

Answer 6

The rest was to long to read so I'll answer the question.I just recently went on a date yesterday to a bowling alley and payed for the lanes and drinks and billiard table.When we got to my place she say's she wants to pay when we go to see a film next time, and I said that's not traditional.
So I really don't know where we changed in todays society but for some reason girls always want to go dutch.Personally I feel like less of a man if we do and that I would have no balls.

Answer 7

I guess its normal human behaviour to want your cake and eat it too. I enjoy to speed my cars on the highways with the money I made, but frown at the thought of paying taxes. Also men especially southern men get offended when their dates want to pay, feminists women are about as popular as women with beards among southern men though. And if you go out with Italians there will be real bickery about who pays the date. Goes back to the days when peopel were poor but still offered to guests however the children were taught at home to no accept anything because of the rampant poverty.

Answer 8

But most (if not all) feminists don't do this...certainly none that I know...I'm pretty sure it's in the "feminist code" (lol). And yes, feminists are aware, and that is precisely why we frown on it (along with a desire to be fair). I would venture that any girl/woman that INSISTS on having her way paid is NOT a feminist, despite what she may say...just an "entitled" princess. My guess is these women really do not know what feminism is all about. Even when I was in high school, I always insisted on paying my own way, and that was before I even knew I was a feminist. Of course, whether these girls insist on having their way paid for them or not should not be automatic grounds for having their "equal rights" revoked (maybe just their dating privileges ; ) since equal, basic human rights should really be available to all, even if they act in a way that would suggest they don't "buy" into it, themselves. It's interesting to me that women are the only group that constantly get their "equal" status questioned (unless it's racists questioning the equal status of blacks, Hispanics, etc.). I understand that the male/female dynamic causes confusion on the subject, and the relatively recent advance of "equality" for women, and it's aftermath, still has both genders reeling. Thirty or forty years is NOTHING when it comes to this type of sociological change, and the constant questioning of whether women really should be equal or not, as evidenced daily here on "Answers," is a testament to this. I guess we all need a little more time to truly understand what it's all about. And, in the meantime, don't date women who insist on you paying for everything.
And "Carrie" is right, I ALWAYS got flack from my dates when I offered to pay (even if it was just for me)...I thought guys would be thrilled with this until, time and again, the guy seemed offended...and I wasn't doing it in a b!tchy-"Don't even THINK of patronizing me!" kind of way...I would truly like to know why that is, because so many guys on here complain, but almost all of the guys I've dated seemed offended when I INSISTED on paying...why is that!!?

"Jonmcn49"--Yes, I've thought about this, (since my high school days) and I do understand the evolutionary implications (although I never thought that maybe those who kept insisting where more interested than the ones who let it slide...I guess I should be flattered that most of my dates REALLY insisted on paying?). But, despite the evolutionary reasons behind it, I felt offering was "fair" (an ideological concept, to be sure). But how do we reconcile so many men COMPLAINING about paying (it happens on this forum a lot), yet "wanting" to pay because of evolutionary "conditioning?" Are we to assume that the "complaint" is really more about our (women's) desire for equality, than it is about men "having to pay"?

And, yes...I hope we will be so lucky, (regarding a certain ideologue)--it's been so much more...RATIONAL...around here, recently. ; )

Answer 9

I'm of the mind that the person who ASKS for the date should pay (or at least sincerely offer to do so).

There's nothing wrong with being a "traditionalist" and assuming those gender roles, if that's what makes both people comfortable. However, it's unreasonable to be demanding that such roles be enforced if both people aren't on the same page.

Answer 10

How does you paying for dinner cause you to disrespect the person you are with??? I am sorry but I think both parties should be willing to pay for one another at some point. Before I got married, I dated this really nice guy with a great personality, but he had one major flaw. He was CHEAP! I paid for alot of stuff even though he made more money than I did, I kept waiting for him to at least offer to do something, but anytime he did pay for anything, he always made sure he had his hand right in it. This made me sick, because I was not raised to behave in this manner. Needless to say I dumped him and I was honest about the reason why I was dumping him. His cheapness turned me off, it showed me just how selfish he was and how this could never work in a marriage, because a marriage is a partnership.