“I can’t date because of feminism” seems to be trending on Google, so let me be the first to say: Yes, okay, sure.
You can't get a date because of feminism in the same way you can’t “date” because it is illegal to lock women in your bedroom and demand that they love you.
But if you are a man who can’t get a date with someone who actually likes you, it’s not because of feminism. It’s because you are someone people do not want to date. Possibly because you spend a lot of time whining about how women having rights has made dating impossible for you.
If you're a man who can’t get a date, it’s not because of feminism. It’s because you are someone people do not want to date.
Now, again, it might have been easier to court a lady in a past age when that lady’s options were to either marry the first man who asks, or to become a spinster. This means that “happy endings” in books like Jane Eyre or Rebecca consist of a man who has treated his first wife terribly being incapacitated so his second wife can enjoy his wealth with significantly less threat to her wellbeing. Because, you know, being with men who kill or imprison people is bad, but being a spinster in the past is also a terrifyingly limited position.
Today women can just go out and get a job. Men keep invoking this threat that you will end up with a bunch of cats, not taking into account that that doesn’t seem like a particularly awful prospect anymore.
A woman is going to be a cool aunt with an adopted shelter cat who excels in her career and spends her free time traveling around the world? Oh no.
That doesn’t mean that people don’t still crave love and companionship. Most people do.
But women having more options does make romance with men you don’t especially like seem less palatable. And that’s good. The fact that feminism means women and men now try to enter into unions with people they actually like is one reason the divorce rate is thought be at its lowest in 40 years.
Basically, this means that men have to be someone who people want to date. They can not simply exist, as a man.
Men can no longer simply exist, as a man.
That is true even if they are not actively being horrible. Being a “nice guy” insofar as not abusing someone is just a baseline. As Cracked points out, “Saying that you're a nice guy is like a restaurant whose only selling point is that the food doesn't make you sick."
Women don’t have to go out with you anymore because the alternative is more terrifying.
That means you might have to pay attention to what other people like.
In the same way, if you feel the #MeToo movement prevented you from flirting, it is possible you were never flirting so much as “harassing women in the workplace.” Flirting, after all, is intended to be an enjoyable activity for both parties. So if one party was not, say, enjoying you trying to give her an unsolicited back massage, then that was not flirting. You were doing it wrong.
This is one of the first eras where men have to bring something to the dating and flirting table beyond the very fact of their being a male who is willing to date a women. Which means that they have to actually respond to women’s cues. They have to learn how to read women.
And if you think, “how could one begin to read mysterious creatures like the opposite sex?” Well, this is all women’s magazines have been doing for the last 50 years or so. Every women’s magazine features ways to appeal to the opposite sex, from how to make “engagement chicken” to a Kama Sutra of sexual positions you can learn.
Women have accepted, from birth, the notion that dating is about bringing qualities to the table. And it is honestly exhausting how much women are expected to bring to the table to be a desirable partner. (You can just read the “cool girl” speech in Gone Girl to see how exhausting it can sometimes be.)
Maybe it’s about time men started doing the same. I’m eagerly anticipating the day when men’s magazines start teaching men how to date by, say, suggesting they learn to cook for us.
Jennifer Wright is BAZAAR.com's Political Editor at Large. She is also the author of 'Get Well Soon: History's Worst Plagues and the Heroes That Fought Them' and 'It Ended Badly: 13 of the Worst Break-Ups In History.'
