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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

“On one hand, women are extremely powerful and we’re leading the workforce and climbing to jobs that are simply amazing. But, on the same note, we want to be feminine, we may not necessarily want to be the ones approaching the guys. How does that work? You still want to be the girl at the bar where the guy is the one who comes up to you.”

Well... tough! If you want to be leaders, you have to take responsibility. It's hard to take initiative, it's scary to risk rejection, but someone has to. And if you want equality, that means you gotta step up and do your share of "approaching".

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As a woman who is willing to initiate, I find it rarely works. It mostly backfires. Men typically react one of two ways: "Cool! Slut throwing herself at me!" or "OMFG! Stalker!" It almost always goes disastrously. I have been working on figuring out how it works to attract a man and let him initiate. I find it to be rather tricky to navigate.

It rarely works for many men, too.

My impression is men get told "no" a lot, not "sure, honey, I would be happy to use you like a kleenex and discard you" or "Stalker!"

But have an upvote, because you are essentially correct.

men have to deal with women who never call back after sex or a lesser hookup either. it happens a lot, men just don't talk about it because it's:

1. seen as unmanly to not have a women want to sleep with you again

2. seen as manly to not want to sleep with her again anyway

for the two somewhat paradoxical reasons above, men just don't talk about it in open conversation very much.

either way though, outside of serious relationships i'd say that 20% of the men are having 80% of the sex. the rest are either pretending or just don't participate in dating/hooking up. this is the cruel reality of modern dating. nobody feels sorry for guys, either, especially not women.

Not entirely true. The tactfulness of response given is really a function of how much of an asshole someone is, rather than their gender.

Both men and women get rejected in polite, and awful ways. It's just life.

What natrius said. Not meaning to sound mean here, I applaud your initiative. Really wish more girls had the balls to do the same. And there's probably a difference regarding how forward women and men are perceived (especially in the US, I don't get the same impression in Norway). But do you have any idea how many girls an average guy approaches for every one he actually has a mutual connection and attraction with?

In online dating, where I put in some effort (sending a serious, thought-out message and not just boilerplate) I get a reply to about one out of every five messages I send. The total track record after about a year of effort is one date per 20 women messaged, or something like that. The picture is better when you're meeting people at parties where you already have something in common (one in ten, maybe?) but I'm assuming the bar scene would be somewhere around 1/20 or worse. I'm in my mid twenties.

Let me try to put that another way: I get the distinct impression that many men find it threatening to have the tables turned and struggle to remain in control of a process where they are used to initiating. I have put a lot of thought into how it works to signal receptivity selectively because it really has gone extremely poorly for me to initiate, even though I have a long track record of being heavily sought after by men. I have trouble reconciling the two sets of experiences without viewing it as mostly rooted in biased social expectations about who is allowed to do the asking.

a) Are the men who are "soughing after you" as desirable to you as the ones you are after when you take the initiative?

b) Are you more nervous when you take the initiative yourself?

In most cases, I was pretty sure they were interested before I decided to bring it up. Me initiating caused back pedaling. So the groups have substantial overlap. The problem seems to very much be that I am not supposed to be proactive, etc.

I don't know how to answer that second question. I initiated with my ex husband. We were married more than two decades. But he very likely qualifies for a diagnosis of Asperger's and was often clueless when women flirted with him. More "normal" men seem to be shocked and appalled that I would take an interest in them and express it. As best I can tell, it has nothing to do with me being nervous. As best I can tell, it has to do with being perceived as a dragon lady.

I've entered a budding relationship with a pretty neat woman just last week because of her initiative, so I'm glad to report it can happen.

The good news: that approach filters out the men with gender-relations issues sooner rather than later, leaving more time for those few that make it through.

I married a man I initiated a relationship with. But we were good friends in high school and married young. I am curious how old you and your lady are and how you met, if you don't mind sharing.

I'm 29 and she's around 33.

We've worked in the same building for a few years (different employers) but only small-talked on rare occasions until lately.

If I recall correctly, she mentioned taking in a kitten that had wandered into the lobby of our tiny building. I explained that I had let him in, and out of the cold, before that. She suggested drink and we eventually hit the bar and it escalated from there.

Moral of the story: help save every lost kitten that you find.

Thanks. That's helpful information.

Yes, it seems men are so easy nowadays, that women have totally forgotten the ancient arts of seduction.

As far as I know, women seem to simply give up at the first obstacle. However, the numbers game is on women's favor, so it still works very well for them.

Funny, not promptly giving up seems to be the basis of some men viewing me as a stalker. (A reaction I also sometimes get merely for talking to a man, so, no, I don't think I am behaving pathologically.)

I am not convinced it does work well for women, but I imagine this is not the place for a meaningful discussion about that given the amount of dismissal and negativity I am being met with for commenting on my firsthand experiences. (Edit: I don't think it works well for either gender and I don't like the implied framing that this is a men against women thing. It is a situation where "winning" requires cooperation and doesn't really occur unless both a man and a woman "win.")

Thanks, that's a good insight of the other point of view of the issue for me.

Men have a hunting instinct that must be engaged, and if it's not engaged, the courtship software routine just doens't run. Men need to bat their claws at a string.

Have an upvote, if only for being giggle-worthy. I have been trying to mentally model this as "no one should be treated as an object, men don't like it anymore than I do" and looking for a path forward that allows for meaningful negotiation of terms which satisfy both parties. It's been challenging but interesting.

I think that's a laudable goal, but I think the reality is that humans are objects with human firmware. Activate the firmware routines as they were meant to be activated and you're in business. Humans have all kinds of customs modeled to the firmware, (for example, smiling and hugging and tickling) and just because you take advantage of those doesn't necessarily mean you're objectifying.

Women seem to routinely get shorted by the model we have in place currently. I am in search of a path which gives me some means to get my needs adequately met. I am clear I would rather be alone than be in a situation again which benefits a man far more than it does me and at undue expense to me. I don't think you will understand that issue, but that is the issue I am trying to sort out.

Playing the passive role is actually a form of power. Women get to decide who gets to play the dating game and who sits on the sidelines based on whose advances they accept and reject.

I understand that, and it's part of my point. The passive party has much less at risk than the approacher. It's hypocritical to tell men that women are equals and at the same time demand that they consistently take the riskier role.

Perhaps, but this is something that is driven organically by behaviour rather than consciously out of any sense of fairness.

If men simply stopped approaching women, then eventually women would be forced to start taking the initiative (or all die single). At that point roles would be reversed and the expectation would become the other way around.

Women do share risk but in a different way -- a woman risks emotional attachment and pregnancy with the guy moving on to another partner

As well as being thought of as a slut if she's seen meeting a lot guys (whether concurrently or in a row), like she would need to do to screen who's dating material and who's not.

Did you know that men are capable of emotional attachment as well?

> If men simply stopped approaching women, then eventually women would be forced to start taking the initiative (or all die single).

True. I feel like this is gradually happening, I know in the US and Japan but probably other developed countries as well. Women predictably are irritated by this trend and you often hear them complaining nastily that men need to do things like "get off the computer", "put down the video games", and "step up their games" (dating wise).

You can't give your full attention to a man when you're being courted by 20 men every 5 minutes. It's like sending a resume: there's a ton of applicants and you can't interview them all.

This suggests to me that a sensible business model would be for the man to pay to have his profile pitched to a given woman. This would reflect the IRL risk of asking for a date.

Not necessarily. I think there's a better solution for that. You just have to consider what it's like to be the typical woman on a dating website and try to mitigate the problem.

So... my take on this:

How about a group dating website? When you and friends get a date, there's a notification prompting you to set a group date. I think women would be far more likely to meet strangers if they can bring friends along. As a bonus, you'd see what he's like around his friends. And if it turns out he's not exactly your type, maybe one of his friends seems a better fit.

Because she can bring her friends along, she'd be much less hesitant to initiate contact with a stranger and much more likely to meet in person.

And because she won't go alone, she doesn't have to worry that others will think of her as a slut when they see her meeting a lot of men. It will look to others as just a bunch of friends hanging out.

She'll probably still get a ton of messages in her mailbox, but this wouldn't be much of an issue anymore since she's more likely to initiate contact with who she wants.

Would be lots more fun than a plain old date too :)

What do you think? Seems like a win-win to both men and women, regardless of sexual orientation!

Honestly, I can see this making women initiate contact even more than I initially thought when you consider that if a friend got a date, WHOA!, now she wants to find a date too so she can go with her friend! And I can definitely see girlfriends bugging each other to find a date so they don't have to go alone.

Start-up idea, anyone? Do I get a free membership?

That sounds to me like a great idea and an effective way of managing risk. I notice that online speed dating services are available also, which might work as a way of reducing risk further

Though I agree with you that women should take initiative a lot more than they do, I disagree with you that it's because they fear rejection that they currently don't. I'm pretty sure nearly every guy would say "yes" to meeting up, even if she's not the hottest or most awesome woman. Since women rarely reply to messages and even more rarely take the first step, I can see men meeting women who DO message them.

About equality: equalty doesn't mean "all things being the same for both genders". Equality needs be based on each gender's needs. Just like you wouldn't require the same from as a child as you do from an adult (because they are different and have other needs and abilities), there are some things that differ between men and women. Equality should respect that. Equality means being respected by who you are, not by being "the same as a man". Equality doesn't mean "being the same as a man", it means being respected for being a woman.

Take this example: breasts are for feeding children; men don't have breasts; so having "equal rights" in that case doesn't make sense. Rights must be based on each gender's needs, just like disability rights must be based on their needs and abilities, not on "being the same as a able person".

Hope this makes sense, having a difficult time explaining it properly.

Equal rights usually means equality under law. For example there not being any laws (such as you might find in strongly muslim countries) which apply to women but not to men.

You're saying that we shouldn't have different laws based on gender so that there is no oppression or disadvantage to one group. But what if by being the same for both genders (or ability, age, etc), the law, or lack of law, is opressive or disadvanteous to some group?

I'm not explicitly saying that, but yes that sounds reasonable.

I can't really think of an example of where it might be oppressive to give both genders the same rights under law.

I can think of an example: Currently, abusive husbands who finally beat their long suffering wife to death do less time on average than abused wives who defend themselves with lethal force. Part of why: He probably killed her in a fit of rage with his bare hands. She typically has to use a weapon and premeditated plan to save her life.

Assuming you have a (equal) right to reasonable self defense under law, you would expect a judge to take into account circumstances which would include things like relative strength of those involved.

For example it would not be seen as reasonable for me to use a brick in self defense against a small unarmed child but it might be if I was attacked by a heavyweight boxer.

It's not something that is limited to gender either, as you could in theory have a weaker man fighting a stronger woman.

The statistics strongly indicate that the outcome is biased in favor of men, against women. The laws and judicial process don't currently do a good job of accounting for very real differences between the sexes here.

I'm not sure that is argument for less equality per se, rather that you think the court should have ruled differently in some cases. Unless you would advocate laws that give women additional rights to use stronger force than men by definition, in which case I would disagree.

As a flipside example everyone has an obligation to pay whatever taxes they owe, that obligation is the same for everyone, in other words it is a criminal offence to avoid paying taxes regardless of whether you are poor or rich. However the amount of tax you have to pay will depend on your income level, as you would not expect a millionaire to pay the same amount of tax as somebody on minimum wage.

I am not arguing anything. Merely supplying an example that fit the parameters you provided. That's all. I am baffled as to why you are trying to turn it into an argument.

Your example doesn't fit the parameters discussed.

I think it does. If you don't think so, move on.

This is the problem I have with feminists, all opinion but not argument. But ok, this topic is dead.

For the record: I do not view myself as a feminist. Nor do I know why you feel some need to label me and clearly hang your personal baggage and judgement on me over this brief exchange.

For some reason "retirement" comes to mind as having a disadvantage when it comes to women who chose to start a family (compared to men who chose to start a family) but I'm young and planning a offbeat retirement plan for myself, so I don't know much on common retirement to elaborate on it.

Women have the flexibility of being shy or proactive. Do men? Not really. Men are the ones pressured to be self-confident, extroverted, and to take risks. Thus, it doesn't seem equal because men have far less choice.

Men have far less choice? Why, because women can do whatever they want and only men are pressured to be a certain way? I think you have a bit of an odd view of the world.

Can you explain a little more why this "odd view of the world" is false?

That's a neoclassical conception of feminism. The second wave of feminism was all about achieving literal equality - changing society so that women could take on the exact same roles and challenges as men.

I wouldn't say such a conception is inherently problematic, but it certainly raises difficult questions. How can we frame an equality that is based on each gender's needs without importing all the old baggage of gender stereotyping? Who defines each gender's needs -- do we care only about those that are purely biologically, or also those that are deeply embedded in the culture? How do we account for those who don't fit -- either physically or culturally -- into the dominant gender categories? And so on.

Make laws for people. All people. You're making this more complicated than it needs to be :) Take parental leave for example, why must a woman get more time off than a man? They might prefer if the father got the parental leave, or they might want to split the time, or they might both want to do part time. And if a single man has a child? Why shouldn't he get parental leave? There you are, make a law that applies to people, not to genders, but regardless, the law is there for women, who just for being female (generally) are the ones who need this law. And that's what matters. The law is there for them, yet also extends to other people.

But not having parental leave at all would be harmful mostly to the female gender. So because people (excuse me, men) don't need it, a country might not see the need for this law at all, making the situation difficult (primarily) for women.

Frankly, a lot of people see laws as "I don't need it", or "my group doesn't need it", so "I don't want this law to pass". They don't think past that so they don't realize other people might have certain needs.

This seems a bit different than what you posted before. The grandparent post talked about equality meaning different things for different groups based on their needs, now you are saying that the rules should be the same thing for everyone.

Which is it?

No, it's not different.

The issue primarily affects a certain group: women. It became a major issue because women joined the workforce without having their different needs met. Having daddy go to work and having both mommy and daddy go to work are two completely different things.

If women were solely homemakers like the old days, I doubt the issue would ever come up at all. Perhaps if women were still homemakers, but single dads and gay couples became a huge chunk of the workforce.

It doesn't mean that particular law can't benefit other groups too, but it's practically only a issue because women stopped being "just homemakers" (or if you're from my country, "domestic women").

So the group we are talking about here doesn't necessarily have to be women, but historically, that's who it was.

Why must it be "feminism"? Why can't it just be "I'm a person too, so I have rights just like other people do"

I wasn't speaking from a feminist prespective at all, just like advocating for disability laws wouldn't make you a "disabitaist". It would just make you a person who realizes people have different needs.

These things have nothing to do with each other. Women approaching guys or being approached, romantically, has nothing to do with their ability to be leaders in the workforce. Zero. And to take the attitude that they need to "step up" in order to earn equality, is totally wrong. Equality is a legal and ethical thing, it doesn't mean you have to do anything.

The fact is, women like to be approached, much more than they like approaching. It's not even very much a cultural thing as far as I can tell, since it's like that in pretty much every country (there are plenty of exceptions, of course, but I'm talking about in general, overall). It's just how people are.

On the other hand, it can be unfortunate. Take OkCupid -- guys will generally message lots of girls. They have to, because the girls aren't sending many messages. There's no kind of inherent problem there, most girls just want to browse their inbox and occasionally write back to a guy that seems all right.

But when girls complain about how OkCupid "doesn't work", I tell them that's also because they're not being proactive. A guy might browse through 200 profiles in an hour; a girl might get messages from 200 guys over the course of a couple of months (it varies a lot). It's going to take her a lot longer to find the "right" guy. So while there's nothing inherently wrong with women wanting to be approached, at the same time they have to realize that if they want to find the right guy, they're going to have a lot more success if they learn to approach, too. But it's their choice. And it's never something for guys to judge.

"These things have nothing to do with each other."

The entire article is about women getting more control over the dating process. Valerie Brennan was the one who made the link to leadership in the workplace, not me.

I wasn't really making a moral point. Just practically speaking, if women want to expand their pool of potential dates, they have to proactively take control of the process of meeting guys.

Maybe someone should create a dating app where only the women can message the men. Then you would get rid of the deluge of male -> female messages. Wonder how well that would work out in practice.

The article mentions one such app...

Yes, "Check Him Out." The article also mentioned that the app didn't have much of a user base, at least in the author's location (LA.) I'd really love to see women taking the initiative in online dating, but I believe this will require a sociological shift (in how women relate to men online and potentially offline as well.)

Yes sociological changes are probably necessary. I think it's a bit disingenious to discuss the "deluge of messages problem" without taking this into consideration. The "deluge" problem is more or less inherent in the current dating paradigm.

Apps like this don't have enough engagement. Women, in general, don't actively search & message men on dating sites. Online dating behavior isn't so different from offline courtship, where men tend to be the pursuers.

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