Single Black Male: Should Women Still Expect Men to Pay for Dates? - Page 3

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Should Women Still Expect  Men to Pay?

One day, men and women will be financial equals. As of today, women only make approximately 77 cents for every dollar men earn for the same work. However, there are already exceptions to this rule in some major cities. Prior to the recession, TIME Magazine wrote an article noting, “in 147 out of 150 of the biggest cities in the U.S., the median full-time salaries of young women are 8% higher than those of the guys in their peer group. In two cities, Atlanta and Memphis, those women are making about 20% more.”

Is the selective application of gender roles at fault? In my experience, both men and women are guilty of selectively championing for gender roles that benefit them while remaining eerily quiet on those that don’t directly affect them. Even if those ‘unspoken rules’ are disadvantageous to members of the opposite sex. For example, when I encounter women who expect men to pay or men who expect women to cook, I often wonder who pays or cooks for them when they are single? Why does that expectation suddenly change when they have a man/woman in their life?

This gender-based expectation system is further convoluted when you consider more and more men and women are raised in single parent homes mostly head by women. This creates a situation where many young men and women have only been exposed to a life where a woman was the dominant or sole financial (and emotional, physical, etc) provider. Yet, when they begin dating this is not the expectation. Despite the progress of women towards financial equality, many women and men still expect the man to provide financially, at minimum, during the courting phase. What happens to these gender expectations when men and women are financial equals or, as is the case in some cities, the woman makes more? Maybe nothing needs to change, but I doubt it.

What are your thoughts on these points? What do you expect from the man/woman and at what point in the progression of dates do you expect it? When dating in a non-committed relationship, is he always expected to pay? Should the person, man or woman, who asked for the date pay for the date?

WisdomIsMisery aka WIM uses his formal training as an internal auditor to provide objective, yet opinionated, qualitative and quantitative analysis on life, love, and everything in between. As a Scorpio, many women wish death on WIM and some have attempted to hasten its arrival. WIM is not a model, a model citizen, or a role model. See more of WIM on his weekly write-ups for SBM and on Twitter @WisdomIsMisery.

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