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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 6/28/2007 5:53:41 PM | When I was growing up, women married right out of high school and usually to someone their age or older. I came of age in the 70's, a very different time, so I felt like I had more choices. I would never have lived with anyone before marriage if I had been born just ten years earlier, but in my time, it became acceptable.
In regards to now, I would never go after a man, or date men so much younger if things hadn't changed. I would probably just sit at home and wait for a "gentleman caller", or meet one at church or some other social outlet. Growing up in the south, things were very different, even after "women's lib". It took us a lot longer to catch up to the liberation thing where marriage and sex were concerned.
I don't feel uncomfortable at all now messaging or asking a man out. I feel freer, but admit, it has brought some bad things too. For instance, as we've discussed here many times, men don't necessarily feel so obligated to be very gentlemanly since women are out in the workforce and able to support themselves. I sometimes wonder if the husbands of the SAHM's resent them for having to be the sole breadwinner.
If I had to choose between then and now, honestly, I would choose then. I miss knowing the rules, and knowing you would be treated as a lady, and sex wasn't something a man brought up right away. Not to say there weren't some heavy necking sessions, but still, no boy ever dumped me in my teens because I didn't "put out", like men are apt to do today. Morality has changed a little too much for my taste.
I just miss those times, as far as dating and relationships are concerned, but not some other things. | |
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bayrab
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Joined: 5/16/2007
Msg: 29 | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 7/2/2007 5:08:04 AM | | It really doesn't seem to have affected my style of dating. I always was way too much my own person to do what everyone else around me appeared to be doing. Common courtesies and respect for each other goes a long way towards opening up the possibility of having more than one date. Why would I want to be with someone who saw me as an object? why would I objectify someone? Why be or have a one night stand, what does that bring into my life? The point of dating, I hope, is to create a connection with someone who will enhance my life and I his, and not just be a sexual relief for a while. sheesh lol | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 9/28/2008 8:42:00 AM | I mis-read the title of this thread and thought it was about sex changes, not sex role changes! I was all set to say "I don't really feel comfortable dating transgendered individuals" when I read the first post and realized that's not the question at all.
However, it WOULD make an interesting thread - maybe belongs in Sex and Sexuality forum, however.  | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 9/28/2008 9:46:10 AM |
"It took me 30 years to figure out that thoses things were not intended as oppressive acts of a male agenda, but as kind gifts out of respect and gestures of caring."
Hallelujah Sister - Thank you for saying that. I'm keeping a copy...
On an individual level I have no problem with chivalrous courtesies, as they are almost always well intended. BUT to not be aware of how diminutive labels marginalize a person is troublesome. Women still do make significantly less for the same work than men. Read Noam, Derrida, D & G - language makes us human and language defines us, many times in binary ways.
A person's world view is important to me. But I have no anger or personal garbage, or overarching political stance, that shapes me into the kind of person that resents a man using socially acceptable mannerisms. That's where I can compromise. Some women cannot do that, as the compromise for them implies complicity. They do have a point. | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 10/7/2008 9:15:40 PM | | Women who were born in the 60's and 70's seem to have an easygoing attitude and are willing and able to share expenses as well as openly enjoy sex. Although I grew up in the 1950's where the guy paid and prayed (to get some) I prefer how it is today with the younger women which is why I stick to dating them. The older women I know seem to be stuck in the old ways although I am sure some are not. I just don't know any who are not stuck in the 1950's with respect to dating mores. | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 10/8/2008 4:52:32 AM | I don't think I have seen that much of a change in MY life in relation to role changes. I was married to a strong macho type guy that insisted on me being subserviant to the point he once asked me to get on my knees when I served him dinner.  That wasn't me then and it never will be me. I believe in caring for others, but don't believe that women are servents to men. I will serve who I want, when I want, iIF I care for them and I choose to... but you can bet no-one is going to make me crawl on my knees!
I don't think my attitudes have been shaped as much by society in general as they were shaped by my family. Although my mother professes many "traditional" thoughts on gender roles, she has always been outspoken and been very much an equal in her marriage. I was raised with the thought that I was on an equal footing with men and not to expect anything less. If a men opens the door for me... I appreciate that as a sign of respect. In turn, I will find some way to show my respect for him. I used to think I might be too masculine in my outlook to get a mate--expecting to be treated as an equal and all that  Now I don't care. I am who I am | |
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¥ogi
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Joined: 10/4/2008
Msg: 37 | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 10/8/2008 7:38:10 AM | I've always felt very strongly about equalitiy for all people.
(maybe a carry over from a previous incarnation,javascript:smilie('')
http://www.plentyoffish.com/smiles/icon_12.gif ).
If a woman works hard in the yard all day in the hot sun, mowing,
raking, etc., I'll have lunch ready and make a nice dinner.
On the other hand, I won't do all the yard work because I'm
the man, then, do half the cooking and house cleaning because
we are equal.
Fair is fair.
To me it seems more like society has caught up with me.
As a couple we can divide up chores in what ever way we like
and it doesn't raise eyebrows anymore.
Now if I could just find a woman that thinks that way.
Dan | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 10/8/2008 10:09:04 AM | | I miss men being men and women being women, opening doors, waiting on her to be seated...I agree it was just a way a man could show he was honored to be with a woman. I like (i almost said real men but not to imply those who arent this way arent real) a man who is in charge but realizes my value to him. Before he makes a decision it is with my best interest as well as his best interest in mind. I think before the reason so many didnt like that concept is that the INDIVIDUAL became greater than the COUPLE. Women have just about beat that concept out of men's head and the only ones who seem to still have it, do so from the wrong angle of being controlling vs understanding what a gift it is. | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 10/8/2008 10:32:49 AM | | Over the years I learned to accept being turned down for dates or told that I wasn't "right" for someone after a couple of dates (aka rejection). I still do not feel comfortbale turning down women when they approach me, either on line or in person. I am not saying that women shouldn't ask men out or take the initiative in contacting them. I think overall things have changed for the better. Maybe if I was more interested in the women that approached I would be more comfortbale about it and enjoy it, but so far that hasn't happened. | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 10/8/2008 2:59:17 PM | I think your uncomfortable feelings come more from a biological difference than from a societal difference.
Mars, and Venus. Most men are hardwired to pursue. ...and they value that. You want to be the pursuer..plain and simple. Now, I believe there are varying degrees of that particular trait..but it seems to me that things work better when men pursue, and women let them know that they are interested in being pursued.
You can't change millenia of behavior with a few decades of societal changes.
Two year old children still throw tantrums don't they? No matter how civilized we think we have become, we are still biological creatures. | |
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| How does living through the sex role changes of the last 30 years affect your dating?
Posted: 10/9/2008 10:34:47 AM | KamikazeKate, that's a terrific post from over two years ago. I'm ten years younger than you are but still was raised in a generalized 1950's mentality that "I didn't get a job or a raise because I was a girl and a guy needed it more...because he was a guy, and that I'd get married some day and then my guy could take care of me."
Today, my mother is 79 years old and very physically and mentally active. She has tried to be a mixed bag of liberal, but it all falls short on this topic as to why I'm the age I am, single and find the need to earn my own living. When I remind her that my childhood friends are on their third marriage, she takes on a sinking look like maybe I might have enjoyed that ride, too. Before my maternal grandmother died when I was 39, she admitted to me that her greatest regret of her own life was that I was a failure in life because I was 39 and single. At that time, I has a very successfull career, a beautiful home and everything else you might associate with successful single-ness.
Another important wrinkle is that most singles who are 45+ (or even 35+) live a life that most adults of the 1950's can't even imagine. Our parent's generation expected less. Very often one person in any given marriage was totally unwilling and often unable to even fry en egg or wash their own clothes, knowing and expecting they'd be catered to. Sleeping in separate rooms or having non-communicative relationships was more common than it is today, if only for the purpose of actually being married. And this was far more desirable than being single.
Our parent's generation, or those who are fortunate to still be living often remark (at least the ones I still know) that they'd rather be dead than to die single. My 80 year old aunt mentioned to me this past summer that if she hadn't married and were single today, she'd never eat or make the bed in the morning.
Now, don't get me wrong, I definitely prefer being in a relationship. But it doesn't make the very sun rise and set on me, either.
Let's just be happy in some respects that this is the 21st century.
Greetings from Gotham.
/I | |
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