" Would you like to go out with me on Saturday night? " There are people who prefer that you ask them directly. On the contrary, there are others who prefer to suggest rather than ask: showing an interest, or other non-verbal signals, which finally make it so clear that they want to go out on a date and that it is then the person being questioned who proposes it.
That is, there are two basic ways to meet someone: asking if they want to date or making suggestions for him to be the one to take the initiative. Below, the percentages of men and women who prefer one option or the other show that traditional roles have not changed much .
Ask me out
Traditionally men have taken the initiative when asking for a date. Men have generally asked for a first date, while women have generally shown signs of interest or receptivity regarding the request .
The funny thing is that currently things have not changed too much, although they have in many fields thanks to feminist movements and other social forces: work, studies, etc. In the field of romantic relationships, women adopt the traditional role .
This is what a study by Michael Mills , Agata Janiszewska and Leslie Zabala suggests, to verify the frequency with which each sex wanted to be invited or wanted to ask the question, and the actual number of times each sex did so in the last year .
The first question asked was whether they would rather ask someone out, or would they rather be asked out.
- Women: 93%
- Men: 16%
It was also asked how many times survey participants had been asked for a first date in the past year. On average, men reported that they had been asked out once. The women reported that, on average, they had been asked out about 5 times .
Why has decades of struggle for equality barely changed this situation when the others have significantly? Why does equal rights and responsibilities seem alien to the social struggle?
Evolutionary roots
An explanation for this sexual difference may lie in the so-called "feminine reputation defense theory." From an evolutionary perspective, men and women have faced different reproductive opportunities and limitations due to fundamental biological sex differences in their reproductive rate and in the confidence of genetic paternity These differences have influenced a wide variety of behaviors, including courtship.
Male parental investment has generally been highly valued by women, and it is a reproductive resource over which women, particularly in monogamous societies, will compete vigorously. To attract a high-value reproductive partner, women display the qualities that men desire in a long-term partner , in particular: fertility, health, and sexual fidelity .
Thus, in the context of impressing potential long-term mates, women were likely trying to distance themselves from promiscuous females, and also expressed more negative emotional reactions (compared to males) towards a female showing a tendency to be unfaithful. Which would explain why women still do not take the initiative when it comes to asking for a first date: it is an effort by women to protect their sexual reputations .
If this is true, should the fight for equality also include this area? Should we ask women to be more active in the love and sexual field? If trends in what a man considers attractive to a long-term partner, however, are evolutionarily deeply ingrained, then such women will be less attractive, as would be women who are forced not to wear makeup or wear clothes that favors them … which would be taken advantage of by women who do not want to bend to this new trend, monopolizing the market.
Or perhaps one day what is considered desirable will be so shaped by culture that these traditional roles will disappear. It is difficult to predict because behavior is an inextricable mixture of genes and culture , which is why sometimes surprising things happen like the Nordic paradox : the more gender equality there is in a society, the more easily natural tendencies emerge; For this reason, in Nordic countries, women prefer to pursue fewer scientific-technical careers, as is the case in Sweden, Finland and Denmark.