The Falcon   |   Volume 83, Issue 53

Published 5/29/13   |   Log In

Dating should be equal between men and women

Responsibility on one gender too heavy

By MELISSA CASTLE, Staff Reporter

Published: February 20, 2013

Men have been asking women out for ages, and women should be able to ask men out, too. According to Seattle Pacific’s website, the student population is made up of at least 70 percent women and 30 percent men. It’s not always easy taking the first move, be that flirting, asking someone on a date or a first kiss.

Sophomore Alicia Meneil said that she believes men should still be the only ones to make the first move. She said it’s “just better if men start [by asking out the woman] because it says a lot about the relationship.”

Each person has their personal perspective about who should take the first steps. Men have been asking out women for thousands of years. However, just recently did women start asking men out.

When asking SPU students Mike Mouhanna, Alex Holton, Luke Davis and Matt Oclander if they believed female students should be asking out male students, they all agreed that women should not have to make the first move. Mouhanna said, “I don’t think it’s necessary.”

Holton said, “In a 50/50 guy/girl ratio at a school, it would be different, but there are so many girls here it’s almost like I get to pick and choose.” Holton said that he did not mean to sound rude, but, instead, it’s just how it seems. With such a large difference in how many women are at the school compared to men, it gives the guys a chance to look for someone they could be really interested in.

Oclander said, “There are so many girls here, and guys think that the girls will be all over them, and there are so few guys that when girls see one, they think that the girls are all over them. There are two sides.” Oclander has a great point because everyone naturally assumes something about the person they are interested in, either that they are interested in someone else or couldn’t be interested in them.

According to Rose Sucanna and Frieze Irene Hanser’s Young Singles’ Contemporary Dating Scripts, men and women have different roles they follow when dating. Sucanna and Hanser explain that “stereotyped gender role postures designate the male role as taking possession of the object of desire and the female role to be serving as the object of desire.” These roles for men include being the ones initiating sex and, for women, refusing sex.

If women are the first to make a move, it may mix up who is initiating the relationship and refusing it. With women making the first move, it also could make it easier on the guys by making it so that they don’t always have to make the first move.

Freshman Jen Mrha said, “There’s a lot of responsibility for the guys when two people start dating, so the girl taking initiative is good and shows there’s two sides.”

The other responsibilities that guys have are to pick the woman up, take her out and pay for everything.

There is so much that a man must do for a woman during the dating process. Sometimes, it’s good to show that there are two sides to the relationship by women also putting something into the relationship.

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