Dating and feminism

Tonight on Genesis we talked about some articles from different feminist blogs about dating, online and otherwise, and how feminism may play into that.

We discussed Andrew Tweten's Feminist Craigslist Dating Experiment, both the good and the trolls.

as well as Amanda Hess' article "Fucking While Feminist, With Jaclyn Friedman"

We talked about how these women experienced many different reactions to their online dating profiles and how they negotiate the dating online while feminist.

We also talked about dating books, and cited Heather Wood Rudúlph's article "Can Dating Books Be Feminist?" in our discussion of how many dating books merely prescribe sticking to awkward and restrictive gender norms that have been around for hundreds of years as opposed to people being themselves and dating who they want to date in a healthier fashion.

We also referenced the book from 1904, Vivilore: The pathway to mental and physical perfection, the twentieth century book for every woman by Mary R. Melendy.

This exploration seemed to lead to the very simple conclusion that listening to other people about how you should run your relationships is probably not going to work. It is best to just be who you actually are, and you will eventually have a positive result.

If you have any comments about anything in this show, or would like to add any other perspectives that we may not have addressed, please comment and we would love to share your contribution.