Thoughts on Gender, Part III

(To make sense of this, be sure to read parts one and two first.)

I’m not sure how to transition here from female vulnerability to male vulnerability.  Part of the trouble is that up till now I have been concerned with physical differences, and now I need to turn to social norms.

Social norms are always difficult to deal with, not the least because they tend to be amorphous and variable.  However, again simply based on my recent life, let me offer two norms in our society: malefold ask out femalefolk; malefolk propose to femalefolk.  I propose merely that this is the way, by and large, that things are done – not the way things have to be done or should be done.

Now I not something interesting: asking another person to go on a date with or to marry you puts you in a position of vulnerability.  (This assertion assumes that the other person is reasonably free to answer in the negative.  If refusal is not a viable option, this, of course, changes the power dynamic.)  In asking a woman out, a man says, “See?  I am an interesting person.  Please consider investing some time in me.”  Rejection can’t help but be personal – it is, in a small way a rejection of his person.  A marriage proposal all the more so.  I heard a young man describe his proposal as offering “everything” of himself and, on one knee, waiting to find out if it was enough. 

(Incidentally, this scenario illustrates why I dislike the pre-engagement decision that “we should get engaged.”  It’s like showing someone his Christmas gift and proceeding to wrap it anyway.  You don’t half-give gifts or commitments.  Either you are committed to marrying each other (engaged) or you are discerning (dating).  If you are both done discerning,  you need to be either engaged or broken up.)

This scenario (before my parenthetical aside) assumes that the man is seeking an actual relationship and not just a hook-up.  A relationship says, “I want to give myself to you.”  A hook-up says, “You will be fun for me.”  It is also complicated by the idea of the “waiting woman” – a common complaint that women are trapped sitting around waiting desperately to get asked out.  Doesn’t this change the dynamic?  Only if we assume that women need men to be complete – and I offer as a counterpart men who ask out dozens of women in a short span of time, yet do not find that any of them stick it out beyond a second or third date.