Would you pay for a date?
November 1st 2006 06:09
He was looking at me. I was looking at him. Something was coming…and it wasn't either of us, it was the bill. My hand quivered before it backed down. He made my hand feel like a red cloth and he was a raging bull. I wanted to at least go halves, I insisted. Then he insisted, then I insisted and then it was over. It was all done and I felt like I was the little lady being taken out for a big night on the town. If you've read my previous posts, you'll know that I am currently unemployed, so most men will probably be thinking, typical woman…never satisfied…would prefer to be broke and broken-hearted than be taken out to dinner. The thing I think most men don't get is that it's not about my ego (maybe a little) or feminism (also a little) but it's mainly that after he paid for me, I felt like I then owed him. Not necessarily sexually but at least as entertainment. I don't know if it has something to do with slavery, or equal rights theory or just an innate laziness that refuses to be indebt…with friends its not so bad…but in the "more-than" category, I start to feel uncomfortable. Women's magazines like to toss-and-turn over these "big" social concerns, like tweens at a slumber party…all the "big" questions no-one knows the answers to. The only problem is that in women's magazines it’s a one-sided debate. The question is, are men uncomfortable when a woman reaches for the bill? Why? If you insist on paying for your own meal, ticket, cab etc. are you emasculating his masculinity? Like it or not, the traditional, social construct of "man" encompasses primitive provider-like traits, so it is debatable that when a woman in a hetero-sexual, pre-nuptial relationship pays for herself, she is stripping him of his socially definitive masculinity…is it here that the metro-male was conceived? Women's embracement, and ability to, embody traditionally masculine characteristics, qualities and inhabit their roles; such embodiment that was previously prohibited to them through society (men's only places), culturally (suppressive female roles), and economically (women's virtual non-existence, both for social and legal reasons, in the workforce). As women are becoming more masculine, in this sense, men are being forced to become more feminine to be on even par. Is women becoming more masculine and men becoming more feminine, really equality?
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