As I have already said other times, the logic of male chauvinism should be kept in mind in order to understand many of the phenomena that revolve around the relationships between the sexes. In this sense, the reason why dating is so easy for women and so difficult for men has to do exactly with that. Male chauvinism creates a structure of opportunities producing paradoxically for men the opposite effect one would expect: they end up becoming the main victims of male chauvinism would seem that should favor them. That is why male chauvinism hurts us all, both men and women. But how this phenomenon occurs? Male chauvinism gives man an active role when looking for a partner (he is the “conqueror”), while gives woman an apparently passive one (she is the “conquered”). This is related to the “lack of initiative” of women. This allows it to create a market in which the relations of exchange of relationships are unequal: they flow from man to woman, generally never from woman to man. The role of women in this market is apparently passive. Is hardly an active agent (at least apparently…). But paradoxically, it ends up producing the opposite effect: woman has the monopoly of the market, since she is the scarce object to be acquired. Woman sets her price not the man, as one would suppose it could be in a market where the active agent is the man. So, it is the woman “who chooses” the man. She becomes the true active agent (she is “who chooses” the man): the relations of exchange of relationships flow from man to woman, and she has many man to choose from. So she does exactly the same thing anyone of us would do if we were in her situation: choosing the one with a higher value for her. That is why she can be “demanding” or “asking for too much”. Choosing in this way, from high expectations, being “demanding”, or “asking for too much” has nothing to do with her personality or with any specific feature that may be typical of women. It is simply because the market works this way. The opportunities’ structure of this market of exchange of relationships promotes that: it fosters woman being who chooses, and choosing from high expectations.

That is why women end up having the upper hand: because the configuration of the market of exchange of relationships promotes that. But, what should be done to break this structure of opportunities? It seems that there would be several possibilities. The first might be to open the market for women and limit it for men. Thus, having a greater number of women than men could favor that price quoted for women in this market were lower: there would be more than one woman for every man, so it would be man who would chose, because he would be the coveted object. In this new scenario, it would be much more difficult for woman “being demanding”, as they would not be in a position of being so: it would be man, not woman, who would have more to choose from, and therefore man would have more alternative choices. This would suppose that the monopoly on the choice of relationship would not be from the side of women, but from the side of men.

But in fact this would be a false solution, because it ended up reproducing the same structure of opportunities that we would try to fight against. In other words, this solution does not break at any moment the dichotomy man-active / woman-passive. And it is by this dichotomy that the woman ends up having the control because, as they know very well, who is contacted (the woman) is the one who has the last word and, therefore, the control. It is difficult to break the imperialism of male chauvinism on this market just thinking that putting more women than men, men leave behave as they always have done. Soon, everything was the same. The numerical solution is a solution terribly naive and useless. But there is another solution. This is much more difficult to implement (the above solution is relatively feasible, it requires only to enter a closed number in the system to limit the number of men in favor of women —how do this is something more complicated and most dating websites have failed to achieve it), but may be more effective. Was that men were limited to contact only with women who have previously contacted them. That is to say, men should impose itself an iron discipline in order to not contact with any woman. So, it is exactly changing roles: men would be passive, women would be active. This, leaving apart the fact that this would suppose a possibility of reproducing the same market we are trying to fight against but with an opposite sign (in this market there are still unequal powers, but now they are in favor of man), gives a differential advantage to man: as women know very well, who is contacted has the last word (as she does not offers herself, but she is contacted by others, and this gives advantages when demanding exigencies). You may think that implement this discipline would be very difficult for many men, but in the long run it would be beneficial for them. You might also think that this would not serve as much, as you may think that women would cost assuming this new role. But it is clear that it cost the same for women as for men. And most likely the market would tend gradually to a spontaneous equilibrium in which, in the end, the lines between the two roles often were quite blurred. No more having passive and active ones, as neither man would be active as they are nowadays nor women would be passive as they are now. So, gradually, the market of exchange of relationships would be reaching an equilibrium breaking the monopoly of both men and women, since the structure of opportunities would be much more equal.

El artículo Dating sites and male chauvinism se publicó primero en Xavier Gimeno Torrent.

But actually there is no psychological barrier. It is a social barrier. It is called male chauvinism (in Spanish “machismo”). It is what explains that in gender relations there are still one part that are free to do whatever they want (men), and another part cannot do it (women). Ones that can go drinking without fear nothing, and others that have to be always thinking stratagems in order for it in any case some men can overstep the bounds of propriety, inside or outside the premises. When women perceive that they are not free to dispose of his life, to decide what to do with it, to decide the companies they keep and the companies they keep not, who they fuck with or who they fuck with not, etc., then women do not choose, women do not “have the initiative”. That’s what keeps happening with many women: they do not “have the initiative”. Because really they do not feel they have it, because in reality they do not feel they are allowed to have it, that “lack of self-confidence” which is still spoken, which actually is not a lack of self-confidence. It is a very realistic confirmation, although most of the time unconscious and not verbalized, of a clear fact: woman does not decide because in a sexist and patriarchal society she does not have the possibility (becoming an ability) to decide. And it is not “normal” to do so under these conditions. What would be “abnormal” were to do it. Thus the dispositions that some would call psychological do nothing but register, through the mental categories, which is engraved in society and is recorded in the bodies and minds: the objective, objectified, verifiable, measurable statistically fact that there are some who have freedom, the possibility (becoming an ability) to decide on his own life (men), and others that cannot do it (women), and all it does what are considered “lack of self-confidence”, “lack of initiative” etc. it is to translate these objective facts in verifiable actions, or, rather, lack of actions. Because the “no action” is the most appropriate category for measuring what are doing the ones that feel, very realistically, that they cannot do anything: not acting, not “taking the initiative”, or not “being self-confident”.

El artículo The lack of initiative se publicó primero en Xavier Gimeno Torrent.