5 ms·

I love Bumble's concept because it attempts to complete what feminism espouses. Aren't we all about empowering women, and how we can all be capable in the jobs

I love Bumble's concept because it attempts to complete what feminism espouses. Aren't we all about empowering women, and how we can all be capable in the jobs we do, and the lives we lead? It's a great thing and I believe in it. But... Women collectively stopped short of picking up an equal responsibility for initiating romantic or casual interest. As a guy, you are absolutely expected to make the first moves. That doesn't sound very fair to me. (Don't say it's because women aren't as interested as men. We're all pretty horny on average, and we all want to make connections. Equality, remember?)

Blackstone4 7y ago
I agree with people being empowered regardless of gender. However...imagine an app where only men could contact women. I feel like certain groups would be outraged....what do you think?
- mcv 7y ago
  A big difference is that that app would double down on a specific gender-based inequality in dating, whereas an app that turns it around, subverts that traditional gender-based inequality. That is less sexist, and might indeed be more effective because of it. It forces women to take a more active role in dating when in traditional society, they're often expected to take a passive role. So it doesn't confirm the sexism, it addresses and counters it. If at some point in the future, it becomes expected that men take a passive role while women always take initiative, then your imagined app would be better because it would subvert that sexist expectation. It's all about context. Ideally of course we should end up somewhere in the middle, where men and women are equal partners in the dating arena.
- landryraccoon 7y ago
  Nobody would be outraged because the app would fail and nobody would be using or talking about it. We’re only talking about Bumble because their approach works in some sense.
bluntfang 7y ago
Are you trying to say that there's a responsibility for women to hit on you in order for feminism to not "stop short"?
- derefr 7y ago
  Nobody owes me anything; but (single, lonely, would-really-like-a-partner) women might have a responsibility to strike up a conversation with somebody, somewhere, some of the time. Like a “good deed for the day” sort of thing, but a “fearless attempt to satisfy one’s own desires of-the-day” sort of thing. (Sort of in the mould of Rejection Therapy?) Though I would say, since a lot of the reason women don’t seem to hit on men comes down to inculcated social anxiety from being raised to view strangers as unpredictable scary people who can only mean harm (a view which sticks around even in adulthood, long after it’s “helpful”; a view that boys seem to get along just fine never being burdened with), maybe the real responsibility here is on parents to... not do that. If that’s the case, I don’t know what to suggest for the generations of women that exist right now and have already been screwed up by being raised this way. (What do you do for the adults who were victims of foot-binding as children? Their feet just are that way now. And these women’s brains just are this way now, too.)
  - bluntfang 7y ago
    there's a phrase I use to remind myself of reality when I go down these thought paths: >Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. Remind yourself the demographics who overwhelmingly commit violent crimes, especially domestic abuse, when considering relationship dynamics. Eliminating violent domestic abuse by men would help bring equity this situation.
    - derefr 7y ago
      Simple counterarguments: gay and lesbian culture. If fear of romantic socializing were something correctly calibrated by knowledge of violent tendencies of your potential partners, then gay men would be just as afraid of asking other men out as women are—because, of course, there's the same probability of a male stranger to turn out to be a homicidal maniac, whether you're a man or a woman asking out that male stranger. But gay men are not afraid of approaching other men—in fact, they approach one-another quite successfully, usually very quickly after first deciding they're attracted to someone. And gay men aren't all suddenly dying in ditches from all the homicidal maniacs they run into. Meanwhile, lesbian women are just as socially-anxious about approaching other women, as straight women are about approaching men. One of the "universal experiences" of lesbian culture is feeling mutual attraction with someone, but neither of you working up the nerve to ask the other out, sometimes for years. Seems less like this is any rational reaction to any properties of the romantic target, and more just a property of the subject.

Blackstone4 7y ago

I agree with people being empowered regardless of gender. However...imagine an app where only men could contact women. I feel like certain groups would be outraged....what do you think?

mcv 7y ago
A big difference is that that app would double down on a specific gender-based inequality in dating, whereas an app that turns it around, subverts that traditional gender-based inequality. That is less sexist, and might indeed be more effective because of it. It forces women to take a more active role in dating when in traditional society, they're often expected to take a passive role. So it doesn't confirm the sexism, it addresses and counters it. If at some point in the future, it becomes expected that men take a passive role while women always take initiative, then your imagined app would be better because it would subvert that sexist expectation. It's all about context. Ideally of course we should end up somewhere in the middle, where men and women are equal partners in the dating arena.
landryraccoon 7y ago
Nobody would be outraged because the app would fail and nobody would be using or talking about it. We’re only talking about Bumble because their approach works in some sense.

bluntfang 7y ago

Are you trying to say that there's a responsibility for women to hit on you in order for feminism to not "stop short"?

derefr 7y ago
Nobody owes me anything; but (single, lonely, would-really-like-a-partner) women might have a responsibility to strike up a conversation with somebody, somewhere, some of the time. Like a “good deed for the day” sort of thing, but a “fearless attempt to satisfy one’s own desires of-the-day” sort of thing. (Sort of in the mould of Rejection Therapy?) Though I would say, since a lot of the reason women don’t seem to hit on men comes down to inculcated social anxiety from being raised to view strangers as unpredictable scary people who can only mean harm (a view which sticks around even in adulthood, long after it’s “helpful”; a view that boys seem to get along just fine never being burdened with), maybe the real responsibility here is on parents to... not do that. If that’s the case, I don’t know what to suggest for the generations of women that exist right now and have already been screwed up by being raised this way. (What do you do for the adults who were victims of foot-binding as children? Their feet just are that way now. And these women’s brains just are this way now, too.)
- bluntfang 7y ago
  there's a phrase I use to remind myself of reality when I go down these thought paths: >Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them. Remind yourself the demographics who overwhelmingly commit violent crimes, especially domestic abuse, when considering relationship dynamics. Eliminating violent domestic abuse by men would help bring equity this situation.
  - derefr 7y ago
    Simple counterarguments: gay and lesbian culture. If fear of romantic socializing were something correctly calibrated by knowledge of violent tendencies of your potential partners, then gay men would be just as afraid of asking other men out as women are—because, of course, there's the same probability of a male stranger to turn out to be a homicidal maniac, whether you're a man or a woman asking out that male stranger. But gay men are not afraid of approaching other men—in fact, they approach one-another quite successfully, usually very quickly after first deciding they're attracted to someone. And gay men aren't all suddenly dying in ditches from all the homicidal maniacs they run into. Meanwhile, lesbian women are just as socially-anxious about approaching other women, as straight women are about approaching men. One of the "universal experiences" of lesbian culture is feeling mutual attraction with someone, but neither of you working up the nerve to ask the other out, sometimes for years. Seems less like this is any rational reaction to any properties of the romantic target, and more just a property of the subject.