Study: Men Are Still Paying for Dates, and Women Are Still Cool With That
My 15-year old son, Nathaniel, went to sleep-away camp this summer and came home with more than just his trunk—while there, he “got a girlfriend.”
Along the way, he learned that having a girlfriend is “expensive.” When they visited Miller’s Landing, the beloved local burger and milkshake joint that older teens are allowed to frequent, he often picked up the tab.
When his 21-year-old sister heard this, she was delighted. “We raised you right!” she exclaimed. When I sent his grandma an email to tell her the story, she promptly replied, but with a decidedly different take: “Ask him if his girlfriend is a feminist and goes Dutch treat or not.”
In fact, I already had. Nathaniel replied that she often paid her own way. But from time to time, he enjoyed buying her a treat. It felt nice.
As we were chatting, it suddenly occurred to me that even though my husband and I have talked to Nathaniel about sex, drugs, and a host of other sensitive topics, we’d somehow managed to miss a common cultural conundrum: Who should pick up the tab? The man or the woman? The boy or the girl?
A recent study presented at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting suggests the answer is far from clear in our collective mind. Modern ideals suggest that gender shouldn’t play a role in who pays for dates. But traditional notions of chivalry die hard.
David Frederick, a psychology professor at Chapman University and one of the study’s co-authors, said the motivation for the research was to understand why some gender-based practices (like the acceptance of women in the workplace) have changed, while others (such as certain courtship rituals) have not.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
My 15-year old son, Nathaniel, went to sleep-away camp this summer and came home with more than just his trunk—while there, he “got a girlfriend.”
Along the way, he learned that having a girlfriend is “expensive.” When they visited Miller’s Landing, the beloved local burger and milkshake joint that older teens are allowed to frequent, he often picked up the tab.
When his 21-year-old sister heard this, she was delighted. “We raised you right!” she exclaimed. When I sent his grandma an email to tell her the story, she promptly replied, but with a decidedly different take: “Ask him if his girlfriend is a feminist and goes Dutch treat or not.”
In fact, I already had. Nathaniel replied that she often paid her own way. But from time to time, he enjoyed buying her a treat. It felt nice.
As we were chatting, it suddenly occurred to me that even though my husband and I have talked to Nathaniel about sex, drugs, and a host of other sensitive topics, we’d somehow managed to miss a common cultural conundrum: Who should pick up the tab? The man or the woman? The boy or the girl?
A recent study presented at the American Sociological Association’s annual meeting suggests the answer is far from clear in our collective mind. Modern ideals suggest that gender shouldn’t play a role in who pays for dates. But traditional notions of chivalry die hard.
David Frederick, a psychology professor at Chapman University and one of the study’s co-authors, said the motivation for the research was to understand why some gender-based practices (like the acceptance of women in the workplace) have changed, while others (such as certain courtship rituals) have not.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
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