Comment by gtowey | Hacker News Reader

Comment by gtowey | Hacker News Reader

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> This skirts a taboo that you can barely talk about: that personal preferences in dating are not judged to the same standard, and that movements of empowerment and positivity are clashing with everyone's free will in pursuing -- and especially articulating -- what they do and don't like. Declining to date someone because they're fat is now firmly seen as a bullying tactic, but not dating someone because they're short is perfectly fine.

Do you have sources to cite on that? Because this honestly sounds like an incel talking point. The idea that it's ok for women to judge and reject men -- for being short, or any other number of male-oriented deficiencies -- but men are not similarly free to reject women based on their appearance. It's bullshit and it doesn't really exist. Anecdotally, I've never once seen someone be judged for not wanting to date someone no matter how shallow the reason. It's just another way in which these men are claiming to be unfairly victimized in the dating world.

While I agree that the message sounds a bit like that, I think he is right about that point. For me an eye opener was Tinder. Where I live it seems like half of the women have something like "Don't even try if you are less than 1.80cm" or something like that in their profile. I am actually relatively tall and happy with my sex life, so I don't take the offense personally, yet I can't help but wonder what would happen if a guy wrote something like that about weight or boob size, for example? (I sometimes consider opening a fake female account to see if some men actually do that...) Also interestingly, a lot of women profiles are just a collection of attributes they don't want in guys, written in a very negative language... instead of, I would expect, just some positive things about themselves. I wonder where that delusional way of looking at themselves--as an inherent "price" to be "won" by the very best in men--comes from? Are men in online dating like that too? In our society we are reflecting a on what "masculinity" means, and scrutinizing and redefining male sexual behavior. This is a good thing. But I wonder if maybe it would also help young women get an understanding of femininity that is not based on these backwards ideas that could help everyone have healthier and more equal relationships.

> yet I can't help but wonder what would happen if a guy wrote something like that about weight or boob size, for example?

Have you browsed men's profiles on Tinder? You're comparing 50% of the actual data to your imagination here.

Read the next sentence, you get your answer.

If we're going to talk data/studies:

* there was that OKTrends blog article from 5-10 years back that noted women tended to rate 80% of men below average, while men tended to rate women in a normal distribution.

* there's apparently some indication that twice as many women as men manage to reproduce successfully.

* To the extent that books like _A Billion Wicked Thoughts_ reflect credible research, there's notable indications that women often employ a broader set of criteria along with a higher floor and aim for picking mates.

There may be methodological issues that I'm not in a position to evaluate, so I'm sure all of this is subject to review. Also, none of this means you have to make any categorical call about who has a more privileged or difficult life by gender; beyond the good reasons for anyone to be selective when looking for prospective mates, there are some that apply to women in particular. But it does look like there are studied reasons for suspecting that women are more selective and critical about prospective mates than men are.

A lot of people here are basing their view of gender dynamics (such as women being given 'the upper-hand' and so on, whatever that means) on Tinder and related websites/apps. It may be worth mentioning that the vast majority of people on Earth (or even the developed world) do not, in fact, use any dating apps at all. Most people's flirting activities still take place in meatspace, with all the associated awkwardness. In fact, in many parts of the world there is no concept of 'dating' at all, or at least not in its codified form as happens in the US.

I respect your experience and it may be that women do have much more power than men in the online dating world - that doesn't mean it's not an extremely skewed representation of the actual social dynamics that happens between humans. This is due to the many cultural biases of the people who make these apps and the audience they're targeting, both of which being typically college-educated urban American millenials.

Not everyone's approach to relationships is like that of a college-educated urban American millenial.

I do not think that women have "the upper hand" or that they have "more power than men", in general nor in particular when it comes to relationships. In particular, what others say here: in spite of these examples, men also reject and of course appearance is also a preference (sometimes even more so than for women).

And while I also agree that the sample from Tinder is a very restricted view, and in general I also prefer meeting people directly in the real world. What I found interesting about Tinder is, precisely, that I allowed me to directly see how women outside of my social circles and spaces I frequent present themselves. While I still live in a hipster urban area, I found that so many of these examples of very traditional views about courtship---all this "I am a price" logic I mentioned in the parent post is not so much a sign of power, but I see it as more of a conservative view that puts women in a passive role. It can be frustrating for men, but probably it is also damaging for women, and to me showed, somewhat, that the road to better gender equality and fluid roles is a long one.

I figure that most incel-type dudes have never had the experience of rejecting someone romantically, for any reason, but have been rejected. The complaint that women can be shallow and men can't (which isn't true; everyone, largely, is shallow to some degree) is really a face-saving way of complaining that women get to screen and reject men, and incel-type dudes don't feel like they have anywhere near that level of agency.

These are basic human-type concerns. Which makes the angry, bitter, you-definitely-can't-empathize-with-me rhetoric of many incels even more frustrating.

A search for 'double standards' on /r/tinder will show you some anecdata for example.

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