So over in the Men’s Rights subreddit, the fellas are doing their best to address the burning Men’s Right issue of “date inequality,” or, as one recent poster put the question,“Hey feminists. How come men are still expected to pay for dates?”
I’m pretty sure that feminists aren’t the ones expecting men to pay for dates, so I’m not sure why feminists should be held to account for something they’re not doing, but in any case, the Men’s Rightsers don’t seem much interested in hearing explanations from feminists. No, they’re rather offer their own theories.
Enter a new convert to Men’s Rightsism called MrKocha, who enlists the aid of SCIENCE to offer his own explanation of this terrible date injustice:
I see a lot of problems with every day inequality between the sexes in mate interaction in various areas.
Attention, human female. Initiating mate interaction protocol.
First being, the average female has vastly different motivations in her mate selection. How much is nature vs nurture is up for debate, but I tend towards believing millions of years of evolution probably have left a significant mark there.
Huh. What are the odds that these millions of years of evolution just happen to line up with whatever regressive assertions about women — sorry, females — this dude is about to make?
Anyway her mate choice process often involves looking for signs of genetic fitness in male (attractive appearance, displayed dominance socially or physically, risk taking, higher social status), and weighing this against his ability to invest in her long term future: such as pay her dinner/bills). Paying for dinner displays two things: one a willingness to self sacrifice for women, and two the financial resources to continue to do so.
Let’s see. Human beings for the majority of their existence on this planet were hunters and gatherers. Even if we assume that men mainly did the hunting and women mainly did the gathering, the gathered food made up the bulk of the diet. So really, men on dates should expect women to bring them large salads in return for the carcass of a small mammal.
The second part of the problem is women also have a significantly stronger in group bias, to the point where considering points of view don’t immediately benefit females is actively more difficult.
Uh, I think you accidentally the sentence there.
The process of asking women to merely consider in the name of equality, whether there are social solutions to reduce inequalities between the sexes in mate selection scenarios commonly triggers a strong negative emotional response, that her ‘turf’ is under attack and whoever presents such a question is a threat.
Really? Lots of women have no fucking problem whatsoever with paying for dinner.
How women deal with this varies tremendously. Some experience a great deal of cognitive dissonance, denial, and explain away inequalities with whatever rationalization provides the most reassuring emotional responses.
Wait, are we talking about women or about MRAs now?
Some project their outgroup hatred upon whoever voices the opinion by attacking the individual with petty, poorly thought out attacks on their character.
He must be talking about MRAs, right?
Others, immediately jump miles past the idea of social equality being a noble (if potentially impossible goal), to the issue of consent, making accusations that somehow even considering the idea of more equality in gender relations is an attempt to violate consent of female mate choice? (MY CHOICE! DISCUSSION IS RAPEFUL!)
Um, how did we get from talking about dinner to talking about rape? Is he really suggesting that women have literally accused him of rape because he suggested they pay for their own dinner?
And finally, there do seem to a minority of women who are able to consider the issue rationally, even if it admittedly, challenges her immediate self interests and might be harder than other subjects to think about?
Wow, some women — albeit a minority — somehow manage not to be spiteful, narcissistic children! What a generous assessment of half the human race.
How to tackle the issue, when women potentially have 4 times the amount of in group preference, reinforced by feminist doctrine and a potential biological preference towards the behavior?
How is “getting dudes to pay for dinner” part of feminist doctrine exactly? I’m pretty sure The Rules isn’t a feminist manifesto.
All I can say is to continue to challenge any social doctrine that reinforces in group bias of women and praise women when they display the ability to think outside the spectrum of their immediate self interest even if ultimately there isn’t much other benefit to you?
Who’s a good woman for thinking outside the spectrum of her immediate self-interest? You’re a good woman for thinking outside the spectrum of your immediate self-interest!
Always try to keep in mind, that the negative responses, are basically a reflection of why the question is a valid one in the first place.
Exactly. Whenever women recoil in horror at some astoundingly misogynistic thing you’ve said, that just means you’re totally right!
In a followup comment, MrKocha returns to the notion that women love throwing around rape accusations, not only at men who argue with them about paying for dinner but at “sexually inexperienced men” generally. It’s bad enough that women aren’t attracted to these men, he argues, but
the amount of shame, condescension and hostility thrown their way is quite impressive.
It can range anywhere from rape accusations to golden ones like “I hope you never find someone and stay alone forever!”
Fun fact: each and every man on the planet earth, no matter how sexually experienced, was once a virgin. Somehow most of them managed to garner themselves a certain amount of sexual experience without being accused of rape and/or having women express the opinion that they should remain alone forever.
Assuming that McKocha is speaking from experience here, and assuming also (because I’m already disturbed enough by his comments) that the bit about the rape accusations is internet hyperbole, what exactly is causing all these women to get so angry at him?
I don’t think it’s the sexual inexperience. I think that maybe, possibly, it might be the fact that he obviously hates women?
Just a wild guess.
MrKocha started up a whole thread of his own to further discuss his scientific hypotheses about the human female and her mate choices. It’s called Females Oppressing Female Mate Choice. Because these evil females who put down sexually inexperienced men are also oppressing females who might choose to mate with these men!
Thanks to AgainstMensRights for clueing me in to the wonderfulness of MrKocha — here and here.
I love Donne’s love poems, too, especially His Mistress Going to Bed.
Plus the comment King James is supposed to have made about his sermons – “Dr Donne’s sermons are like the peace of God, they passeth all understanding.” 🙂
::flaps hands::
I found a pic of the shoes I bought tonight – Converse All Stars:
http://www.converse.com/regular/chuck-taylor-double-zip/MP_2122.html?dwvar_MP__2122_size=065&dwvar_MP__2122_color=burgundy
Hah! Shoes. Had to get shoes for mother-of-the-bride performance in a couple of weeks.
Daughter had already insisted I get the reely trooly m-o-t-b, highly tailored jacket, pure silk (looking) skirt suit with matching cami – which was going out for less than half price – praise all the saints in heaven. I can’t imagine where or when I might ever wear it again.
But I can’t wear the predictable “glamour” shoes that would finish it off properly – I can’t even buy such things. They can’t get onto my almost square feet with the arch to rival Sydney Harbour Bridge. I used to wear such ill-fitting things and suffer through events, but now that the nerves in my legs are starting to die off, I can’t be trusted not to stumble, stagger and fall even if I found some.
I found some really cute flat shoes – which got the thumbs down when she saw the photo. Trudged along to another shop and found some – with a tiny heel, which are the exact. same. colour. as the suit – quite pretty and not at all cute. And they cost less than $200. Win!!
(I was thinking I might go back to get those cute shoes. But woke up this morning to find my tyres slashed – along with 6+ other cars in the street. My budget for stuffImightbuyonimpulse has been blown to smithereens. )
Oh, shit, mildymagnificent! I’m thinking serious curses for those tyre-slashers.
What IS it with so many persons-getting-married that they insist on making people wear overpriced, unflattering, not-their-style-at-all, useless-ever-after and fecking uncomfortable clothes? And shoes – SHOES! Shoes that will hurt your feet, something your daughter could hardly be unaware of!
::froth::
PS does your car insurance cover that sort of thing?
I don’t blame her about the suit really. For most of her life I’ve worn business suits, or dresses with tailored jackets over them. And pearl earrings. So from her point of view it’s me resuming my “usual” style rather than her imposing her ideas on me.
Shoes. She knows about the feet – her sister has inherited the congenital condition that causes all this fuss. We’re forever giving her stick about her collection of eleven umpty pairs of shoes for her near perfect feet while we struggle to find things we can wear. No 2 has more or less given up and buys Campers whenever she can scrape up $250 or there’s a sale.
Insurance? Certainly does. But the excess is much the same amount. So I can make a claim for a few hundred, save $60 or $70 – and who knows what the effect would be on premiums for next year or the following years.
I feel really sorry for a couple of others down the street. They’re on pensions or benefits with no savings to back them up, so they’ve had to go to Centrelink for an advance to cover their new tyres. Which they’ll be paying back from now on. Baked beans and boiled rice for Xmas lunch anyone?
I remember “dating” a guy for a couple of months, whom I really liked. We shared paying for dinners; sometimes we’d go dutch, sometimes we’d just trade off who paid for both meals.
The frustrating thing was, after two months, he told me we weren’t actually “dating,” and I should have realized it because I was paying for dinner, too.
*boggle*
Where does this leave us guys who tend to have a discussion with the woman we are dating about how to split the tab? Also, where does it leave me when my wife pays for most of the dinners we eat at restaurants? Is she actually a man? Am I woman? ARE WE FREAKS OF NATURE?!
So these MRAs do grasp that dating as we know it is a 20th century thing, right? In particular, that a man taking a woman to a restaurant and buying her dinner, when they are neither married nor related, is very very recent?
Social history – yet another MRA fail.
There was one commenter last week on Dalrock’s post about wasting courtship, talking about how expensive “courting” is. Something like, “dinner for two at Outback steaks, movie tix for two, drinks, that’s easily 100 bucks on someone I don’t even know [will fuck me]”
which, yeah, for most people under 30, that IS expensive. For a lot of us over, too.
But… to me that’s the kind of boring-fattening-but-easy date you’d do several years into a relationship with someone. An old-married-people date.
Can’t these guys meet someone for coffee or go to the park for a few dates? Go with someone to a free event at the local uni? It’s way less pressure all round. The point of “dating” is supposed to be meeting someone new and seeing if there is some mutual interest there, not… buying sex. yeesh.
I don’t know if dating is really this bad now, since I’ve not done it in a decade, but it just seems to me like these guys are thinking about it all wrong.
The only time I can remember anyone buying me dinner in conjunction with a “date” it freaked me completely out, since I’d ASSumed he was just inviting me there with a bunch of other friends and was quite shocked to arrive with a major case of post-nap bedhead and realize I’d accepted a datey date, not a regular ol’ weekend friend meetup. There we are, in candlelight, me with half my hair sticking out at a 45 degree angle from my head and a wrinkled, slept-in shirt and a pair of fugly jeans from the outlet store, him neatly pressed and wearing nice pants…. ugh
Then he insisted on paying, which felt worse.
argh, awkward memories. lol
THIS. There was no second date in my case.
Then there was the guy I met for drinks who barely said two words (after being chatty before we met up), seemed pissed at the world, had horrendous B.O., and stiffed me with the bill. I considered that money well spent to be rid of that rage case.
@Babs: Jeez! That sounds horrible! Glad nothing happened to you.
I was once set up with a friend of a friend. First, I wish my friend has ASKED me before giving my number to a random stranger, but that’s minor. We were chatting before the date, and he told me his first thought upon seeing me was “wow, wall sex would be easy” (I’m about 4’6, 85lbs). Yet I still agreed to go out with him. Silly Canuck. Then he kept saying how I was like a hobbit and talked about me giving oral sex to other men, and wouldn’t let me pay. He also kept talking about how he let the woman make all the decision and just went with it. Well, I obviously had no intention of ever seeing this guy again, and I tried to let him down gently, which he didn’t take to kindly to. So I told him flat out why I wouldn’t see him again (crass, would make no effort in the relationship/I’m not interested in making all the decisions/I want an equal partnership) and he said I was a “domme who pretends she’s not” and that I needed to stop sending mixed messages. Thanks buddy.
Wow, that guy’s fucking creepy. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.
Egads, (fellow) Canuck, that’s just…UGH. Dude’s fucked up nine ways till Friday!
And Alice, yeah, how ’bout that John Donne? Any guy who could write half so cleverly (and beautifully, even about fleas!) deserves, if not to get laid immediately, certainly a substantial bump up in my estimation.
@canuck with pluck: Ack! Gag. Blargh.
I have no idea how these fuck-ups think that’s acceptable behaviour.
I’ve only ever have guys insist on paying for dates, I’ve never insisted they do.
In fact it was a source of friction with my last ex, who would often insist on paying for stuff, even though at the time he was a poor student and I was working full time and living at home with only minor expenses.
My new boyfriend has a slight tendency towards this kind of thing, but I plan on nipping that in the bud early.
My general rule of thumb on a date is the Asker pays for the first round of drinks, then the Askee pays for the next so it works out equal but you’re not paying separately, which doesn’t seem very “Date-y” to me.
Once you’re in a relationship I say paying for drinks separately is normal (or doing the alternating of rounds thing) and then alternating on paying for bigger things like meals out.
Where are all these mythical women insisting that men pay for all the dates because I have literally never seen it?
Bina – Yep! Honestly, I wish I had the time and money to study more English Literature. And some history as well! And a computer programming class… *dreams of edumacating myself*
Back when hubby and I were dating, we took turns paying. We bought gas for whoever drove. We were broke students. We wanted to see each other, not use each other. Now that our teen is dating, they share the bill too.
This guy is so ridiculous. The problem isn’t that women want a free dinner. They just don’t want to pay for dinner with this guy. Who would? He’s misogynist and smarmy.
Can you imagine how that dinner conversation would go? YYYUUUUck!
You know, I always thought that guys only insisted on paying for dates if they really liked you. You can also be romantic without spending a cent, something MRAs have fail to understand. Money =/= love.
@auggziliary
Ugh… I hate those “x is unladylike” types! Oftentimes they’re jerks too. They insist that because they’re hyperfeminine, that they’re more attractive. The only way people like me can ever find love is by changing my personality and interests entirely.
Late to the party here, but… I so enjoy how the MRAs seem to conflate women appreciating a “mate” (hahaha) who is confident and has his shit together with only wanting him because he’s an “alpha” and “for his money.” Perhaps, perhaps, in many cases, a person’s financial resources tend to be a by-product of responsibility, intelligence, self-confidence, and work ethic, which is the part that actually attracts others. Huh. (Don’t mean to suggest that poor people lack those things, or that all people with money possess those traits.)
It’s almost as if, generally, well-adjusted people aren’t into lazy, entitled assholes. I wonder why MRAs seem to take that so personally. “She didn’t ignore her preferences and pick me because I am entitled to whatever pussy I want” = “SELFISH BITCHES!!1!!eleven!”
Another thought: interesting how these dudes never seem to consider that, perhaps they attract women who turn out to be assholes/treat them terribly because women who aren’t assholes don’t want to date them.
Yes . Not having sex with a guy if he buys you dinner is a major oppressive and injustice to men . This is clearly inequality .
On a related but different note . I had a guy tell me one time that his wife turning him down for sex was “sexual harassment.” I have seen other guys (mostly married) call it “theft.”
This is in Christian circles where they believe she has not authority over her body(literally) but the husband does and vice versa of course .Do not ‘defraud” one another but for a time for fasting and prayer and or mutual consent lest you be tempted to sexual immorality .
Funny none of these guys seem to ever fast . Anyway not to derail but that passage in a nutshell for them means he is entitled (so is she of course) to sex whenever he wants unless HE “consents’ to her not having sex with him .
It boggles my brain . My head spin around imagining the scenario . Honey may I have your consent for me to not have sex with you now ? What if he says no ? That’s disgusting.And yes its rapey.
The idea that men are “oppressed” by buying a woman dinner without her being entitled to put out fits right in line with that.
But as another poster said some of her dates get angry if she offers to pay or pay half. I think those types would RATHER pay for dinner as long as that meant he got laid no later than the 3rd date . He would gladly buy her dinner 3 nights in a row .Why not just say “I will pay for dinner if you have sex with me ?” Wouldn’t that save everyone a lot of time and game playing?
I have never seen so much obsession over who pays. And the stupid thing is its becoming more and more the norm for both to pay .And I don’t think its because of the MRA’s outrage.
Its not only fair to do so .But it behooves a woman to do so to weed out guys like in the article.
Funny, I had the opposite problem with mine. Whenever I offer to pay (date, family, friends or professionally), and the person declines, I ask once to assure them it’s my pleasure to do so, then drop the subject.
Unfortunately for that script, she was used to refusing politely until her family essentially forced the gift on her, at which point she’d happily accept it. It was a couple months into our relationship before she mentioned that to me. Whoops!
Still, that was a personal/cultural thing. Trying to extrapolate that attitude to all women through caveman instincts would be ridiculous.
Welp, I just treated myself to a teach-yourself-Russian book/cd combo (NOT Rosetta Stone, but something much cheaper and well recommended), so let’s see what happens. I’m slowly teaching myself Portuguese and Italian, along with the Spanish, French and German I already have. Autodidacticism is fun!