9. So what are your biggest concerns? Why are traditional dating/paying behaviors so antithetical to you?
a. First and foremost, I object to “traditional economic arrangements” in dating because of the ‘obligatory nature’ of the cultural demands. If I choose to pay for a date, because I feel in the mood on some particular occasion, that should be my choice. But when I am obligated, just because I am a man, to pay for the date, then my willingness to ‘date’ is undermined, because it feels just too damned oppressive to me.
b. When most heterosexual women go out for a drink or dinner with their women friends, they don’t expect their friends to foot the bill for them. They rarely compare notes to find who makes the greater salary and then expect that person to pay for the time spent together. Why expect that from men, if in fact there isn’t the implied expectation or obligation of ‘sex for money’? If men are truly the kinds of ‘friends’ that women say they want, why not treat men with the same kind of respect and consideration they give to their women friends?
c. When a woman goes, say, to a movie alone, she pays for herself. When a man goes to a movie alone, he pays for himself. But when they go together, he is, in the ‘traditional cultural model’, expected to pay for both of them. Why? If she could afford to go by herself when not with him, why can’t she pay for herself when she is with him? Why should he dig into his economic reserves, but not she into hers? If ‘pleasure in each other’s company’ is the issue, why not share expenses, so that the couple can concentrate on mutual emotional and intellectual pleasure, rather than being sidetracked by economic considerations or financial objectification?
d. How I spend my hard-earned income should be my personal choice, not an issue of cultural obligation. Why is my money a ‘common asset’, when a woman’s money is a ‘personal asset’? It may fulfill ‘traditional expectations’, but it is manifestly unequal and unilaterally oppressive to men.
While some men may feel ‘insulted’ or ‘less than a man’ when a woman offers to pay her own way, of offers to pay for the date, that is not my issue! I am ‘insulted’ when I’m expected to pay for the date unilaterally. The whole issue of ‘less than a man’ is not on my agenda – not because I’m so incredibly secure about my maleness [I’m not], but because I believe that the whole ‘conditional manhood’ perspective is incredibly dysfunctional and emotionally oppressive. I am a man by the simple fact of anatomy; I don’t have to fulfill a long list of cultural demands in order for that to be true. The ‘manhood construct’ pejorative violated everything I believe, and lecture about when giving talks on men’s emotional wellness, concerning what it means to be an authentic, emotionally healthy man in the U.S.
Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute was founded in 2001
to help men become emotionally healthy.
Equitable Dating
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