> > It might be more natural, but it seems more fair to me that the
> person
> > who initates the date pay, whether that is a man or a woman, and
> though
> > it doesn't happen as often (because women have been socialized to
> wait
> > for a man to ask
>
> This would be similar to men who are slobs and have their
> wives who work 50 hours a week outside of the home clean
> up after them argue:
>
> "Hey!  Us men have been socialized to have you gals clean up
> after us!  I'm a gentleman!  Burp!"
>
> In other words, it's doesn't take much "socialization" for people
> to realize they enjoy being mooches, not taking emotional
> risks, and dropping their socks on the floor for others
> to clean up.   If all of your friends jumped off bridges
> and started smoking would you...?

A reason is not an excuse, it's just a way to understand why people do
things the way they do. Men and women both have contradictory social
expectations placed on them - and as a woman I've had to struggle with
conflicting ideas like be strong, but feminine because a man needs to
feel like a man; be intelligent, but not too intelligent because it
might be threatening; be sexy but not too sexy because then you're
trashy, but don't be too demure because then you're a frigid librarian
type, and so on. Similar to the codes men struggle with, or at least
that seems to be accurate from the reading I've been doing - those
restrictive masculine and feminine "codes" society imposes.

Excuse me, I've got to go have a smoke before I jump off that bridge.
;-)



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