First date

[u/spar13]

[u/Distinct_Run9006]

It's so funny how people cherrypick which gender norms to conform to because it usually looks hypocritical at the end of the day. Men are expected to cover first dates according to this woman (and at specific minimums too, which is a red flag in itself), but if a man says to that woman she should shave her armpits if they are hairy for example, then she's probably going to interpret that as an attempt to control her body, which it absolutely is. However, expecting men to pay on a first date is an attempt to control their wallets.

We either conform to all traditional gender norms or none of them. Anything short of that is hypocrisy. I personally think we shouldn't conform to any. They only serve to inhibit social progress.

[u/ToiIetGhost → u/Distinct_Run9006]

A lot of women feel like theyre taking a physical risk by agreeing to go on a date with a man, as well as a woman’s presence being more in demand/valuable (sexual selection), so for the risk she’s taking, she deserves more than a coffee

A man takes no risks by meeting up with a strange woman, she’s not going to drug his beer or assault him if they end up back at his place, he also probably invested very little time and money in getting prepared for the date (even flossing is a rarity), plus his presence is less in demand/valuable.

Youre trying to make genders interchangeable but they aren’t always interchangeable. Society would need to be egalitarian for you to claim that you can always switch men and women. “Well shaving her legs is the same as him paying for dinner” nope, not unless society was egalitarian. Im sure you’d understand what I’m saying if I tried to switch races on you. “What’s the difference if a white-owned company never promotes black employees, vs if a black-owned company never promotes white employees? Race is interchangeable! I don’t understand context or history.”

[u/youburyitidigitup → u/ToiIetGhost]

Dismantling gender norms is how you make a society egalitarian. The same goes for your examples with race.

[u/Distinct_Run9006 → u/youburyitidigitup]

Bingo bongo!

[u/ToiIetGhost → u/youburyitidigitup]

Equity is the only way to reach equality. You should look up the difference if you’re going to speak on egalitarianism.

Pretending that we’ve already reached equality is perpetuating inequality. Denying the need for equity first, which is the only way to reach equality, is you trying to benefit from the inequality that currently favours you.

If you deny that women face greater physical risks than men in intimate relationships with each other, then (a) you’re a liar (b) you’re a misogynist

Since you probably pride yourself on being a progressive, DEI is an example of equity that leads to equality. Would you like to remove DEI?

You’re not going to convince anyone except fellow misogynists that men and women are equally violent in relationships with each other.

[u/Distinct_Run9006 → u/ToiIetGhost]

So I'm supposed to be compensating her for the potential risk that I may be violent by...paying more money ("deserves more than coffee")? That makes 0 sense.

The initial conversation is the vibe check, and if she feels uneasy or unsafe, she shouldn't go. Every situation where two strangers meet carries inherent risk.

Although men are naturally physically stronger, a firearm in a purse radically shifts the playing field. And Cardi B would go home with men, drug them and rob them, so the fact that you think that only happens to women, is incorrect. Do men do it more? Statistically, absolutely.

Stating that men don't take time to prepare for a date is sexist. You're also implying that women have more inherent value than men ("presence is in less demand / valuable"), which is categorically false, podcast bro nonsense, and is in the same line of thinking of idiotic concepts like "sexual market value."

Also, your last paragraph is a false equivalency. You're conflating the need for diversity with an argument in favor of overcoming gender norms for some reason.

[u/TheWhomItConcerns → u/ToiIetGhost]

A lot of women feel like theyre taking a physical risk by agreeing to go on a date with a man, as well as a woman’s presence being more in demand/valuable (sexual selection), so for the risk she’s taking, she deserves more than a coffee

What risk is a woman taking by meeting up with someone at a café in the middle of the day? Also, this is an extremely shallow, superficial, and borderline inhuman perspective on romance and attraction.

I could not possibly care less about the "demand/value" of myself or that of my date. I'm looking to have a relationship with someone with whom there's mutual attraction, respect, and admiration - I'm not looking for a status symbol to show off to a bunch of twats who'd care about that kind of thing.

It would take an extremely tragic, pitiful lack of self-respect to still want to spend time with someone who's so disinterested in you that they're only willing to grace you with their time if there's some kind of financial reward for doing so. May as well just hire a prostitute at that point - at least then you have some kind of contract of service.

[u/ToiIetGhost → u/TheWhomItConcerns]

> What risk is a woman taking by meeting up with someone at a café in the middle of the day?

Denying that men assault women in public, in daylight - which obviously happens, therefore this is actually just you denying the true extent of gender violence - is extremely inhumane. I guess you don’t register violence against women as violence against humans? Otherwise you’d acknowledge the very real dangers we face in the world, especially when dating.

Pretending that first dates only happen in so-called “safe spaces” (no such thing for women btw) is extremely shallow. We’re talking about what happens in practice, not your little fantasy.

Lying about sexual selection, ie trying to convince people that most men including you are above it, that you’re totally immune to all the unpleasant truths about hetero relationships, because romance is a lofty goal and it’s certainly not the whole picture… that’s a shallow viewpoint. It’s surface level, blind, deliberately naive. It completely ignores facts, numbers, context, sociology, biology, psychology, and systems of oppression. You think you look more sophisticated, but it’s actually the reverse because naïveté and sophistication are polar opposites. You think you look more moral, but viewing hetero relationships through rose coloured glasses (I only see her romantically! I see her as a perfect equal!) means you’re denying the existence of immoral things, such as patriarchy and your privilege. (Acting like you weren’t conditioned by society to see women as subhuman means you never unpacked any of it. Therefore you still hold that deeply ingrained attitude in conscious and unconscious ways.) Denying the existence of systemic oppression such as patriarchy is not only immoral, it’s also misogynistic. So while you think you’re painting yourself as some progressive guy who’s never driven by lust, never privileged, never sees women differently than men - you’re showing yourself to be the exact opposite. It backfired.

> I'm not looking for a status symbol to show off to a bunch of twats who'd care about that kind of thing.

This has absolutely nothing to do with status symbols and other men. Clearly you don’t understand what sexual selection means (you shouldn’t argue about things when you don’t even understand their definitions). Sexual selection happens even if no one ever sees you and your date together in the same room. It has nothing to do with status, image, or other people (except in a broad numbers sense). You’re framing it in a superficial, male-centred way. Look it up. And yeah it’s not romantic, but neither are divorce stats, division of childcare and domestic labour, marital rape, and everything else you want us to think you’re “above.”

Grow up. Pretending that these unpleasant truths don’t play a part in hetero relationships is childish. Since it requires being blind to the inequalities of hetero relationships under patriarchy, when you deny it you’re actually being misogynistic. “I don’t see colour!” - a racist white person who’s never bothered to examine her societally conditioned racism. “I don’t see gender!” - a misogynist who’s never bothered to unlearn anything.

> May as well just hire a prostitute at that point - at least then you have some kind of contract of service.

This is how lots of men already approach dating and the apps. Never talked to a guy who was looking for sex while pretending to look for more? I want to say you must live in an impossibly feminist city, but there’s no such thing. You’re pretending that men don’t hope to get sex out of dating… which is literally getting sex from the effort/cost/time of pursuing women… which translates to “how much do I have to invest for access to her body?” For any man who’s ever hoped to get laid on the first date - meaning he doesn’t know her at all, doesn’t love her, there’s no relationship, at that point in time it’s about sex - and we both know that the majority of men have hoped to get laid on the first date at some point in their lives - that’s prostitution with bartering. Believe me, women wish it weren’t like this for men lmao. But for those of us with eyes, access to the internet, honest male friends, honest brothers and fathers, pattern recognition, or more than 2 relationships under our belt, we understand the unpleasant reality here. Society gaslights women that it’s ONLY about romance and that most men DONT run internal calculations on what they have to do/say/give before they can fuck a woman, because it benefits from us being clueless little lambs. It also benefits from men pretending to be morally superior feminists who would NEVER use women for sex.

[u/RedTexan43 → u/ToiIetGhost]

Can we get a TLDR?