Traditionally, men paid for dinner on dates and women just said, “thank you.” Today, however, lots more ladies are flush with cash and ready to spend. Certified clinical sexologist and dating coach Myisha Battle joins host Krys Boyd to discuss courtship in the modern world: who pays for what and why – and how the rise in women’s paychecks is upending dating norms. Her Time magazine article is “The Dating Wealth Gap Is Getting Wider.”
The socioeconomic dating norm shift
By Madelyn Walton, Think Intern
Over the years, dating norms have been constantly changing. For example, who swipes first on a dating app or who pays for the first date? And with the wealth gap expanding across genders, the question has become, who should make the first move?
Myisha Battle is a certified sexologist, dating coach and speaker. She joined host Krys Boyd to discuss this socioeconomic shift, how the changes affect dating culture, and how we might achieve dating equity.
“What I’m really seeing is this shift where men are unsure of what their role is, and women are still holding on to these older notions that men should make the first move and take the initiative in paying for the first date as a gesture,” Battle says.
The academic and professional skillset for women is changing — women are receiving their degrees at faster rate than men.
“Women have really fallen into the higher education pipeline. So that’s where our economy has really moved,” Battle says.
And with women in a better financial position, dating etiquette and financial responsibility are being questioned. For example, whether partners should share financial accounts and being open about financial debt.
“There are cultural reasons why I think it’s become more difficult for men to take that risk, and I want to acknowledge that as well,” she says.
These changes in traditional gender norms and roles have also created a shift in the idea that the man is usually portrayed as the protector while the woman is seen as nurturing and maternal.
“We’ve just done a better job at giving women options to be something other than that, and we haven’t given men other options,” she says.
The more changes that are made in modern-day relationship dynamics may lead to an economically fair dating world.
“So, the economics of it go beyond just who’s paying,” she says. “The economics also are looking at the exchange of time and energy.”
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Transcript
Krys Boyd [00:00:00] Once upon a time, like literally starting in the fairy tale days, it was just understood that men would be the ones to pursue women for courtship. Cinderella could find a way for her handsome prince, but she had to wait for her fairy godmother glow up to make it possible for him to even notice her. And then, after all the shoe nonsense, the prince made the first move that led them to happily ever after. Since Sindy was back in rags at the time, we all assume he paid for their dates, right? In our world, though, a sizable number of young women are further along in their careers than men of the same age that they might want to go out with. From KERA in Dallas, this is Think I’m Krys Boyd. Assuming those women are open to relationships with men who don’t outearn them, it seems like norms around who treats might need to evolve. But my guest is finding that many young couples are struggling to figure out how or whether to rewrite the age old economic rules around courtship. Myisha Battle is a certified clinical sexologist. Her article for Time magazine is titled “The Dating Wealth Gap Is Getting Wider.” She’s also author of a book called “This Is Supposed to Be Fun: How to Find Joy in Hooking Up, Settling Down, and Everything in Between.” Myisha, welcome to Think.
Myisha Battle [00:01:13] Thank you so much for having me, Krys.
Krys Boyd [00:01:16] For as long as heterosexual dating couples have consisted of two employed people, there’s pretty much always been one person, right? Who out earned the other. How did this shape dating behaviors? When the assumption was that a man would have more disposable income than a woman?
Myisha Battle [00:01:32] You know, it’s interesting because our courtship rituals have really changed. It didn’t always happen that men dominated the courtship in terms of making their first move and paying. But in recent history, that’s what we have to go on. And I think that what I’m really seeing as a dating coach is this shift where men are unsure of what their role is, and women are still holding on to these older notions that men should take the first, you know, make the first move and take the initiative in paying for the first date as a gesture. Maybe they don’t expect it all the time, but it it will add up. If you’re a young man who’s paying for, you know, a few first dates over the course of a month. And the question that I really raise is, is that fair to ask? And also, how do shifting gender norms need to adjust and account for this socioeconomic shift that we’re we’re seeing?
Krys Boyd [00:02:39] There was also a time when men were almost exclusively in charge of asking for dates, right. Like women have had the power to say yes or no. But why did social traditions not leave much space ever before modern times for women to ask for a first date?
Myisha Battle [00:02:56] It’s a good question. Again, you know, I come back to this idea that it hasn’t always been this way, but in recent history, that’s what we’ve got. And the you know, the only thing I can really say is that patriarchy has really done a number on us in terms of our expectations of what should happen in heterosexual dating. We have assumed that men would hold financial power and therefore would be moving in the direction of, you know, that first date is an assessment on his part of whether this is going to be a good person for him to move forward with. And there’s always been this tension of finances and marriage, right? We have some cultures that still have dowries that, you know, account for the changing of hands between parental figure, you know, the man, the father in the family over to the male caregiver giver or protector or provider. And that dynamic, I think, largely has shaped our courtship rituals in recent history. But we typically in the West, we don’t have dowries. We now have had decades of telling women that they can do anything. They can earn as much as a man or more. And we have now examples of this. We have concrete examples of women who are CEOs in very high powered, you know, multinational corporations. We have this understanding that women can do everything men can do, but there’s still this area of dating where there’s that tension. So I do think the simple answer is patriarchy, but obviously there’s there’s nuance to that, right?
Krys Boyd [00:04:45] I mean, one could imagine that regardless of individual finances, men might have like to be treated to a night out now and then, but paying for dates is also like a courtship display, right, a man can demonstrate his eligibility as a potential long term partner by being very generous on those early dates.
Myisha Battle [00:05:04] Yes, and I think you’re right. There are a lot of men who would take that as a sign of being taken care of, too, and would appreciate when a woman asks them out or, you know, makes the first move on a dating app. That’s actually been my experience. I met my partner on Tinder, and I made the first move, which was, you know, he immediately acknowledged, and I appreciated that. I think there’s a sense that women that I work with want to move in that direction of, hey, it doesn’t really matter who’s making the first move. What matters is that we both agree that this is a partnership that we want to pursue. And if you’re not where I am financially, that’s okay, I understand that. I know we live in capitalism. We have to make adjustments based on what each partner is contributing. And I’ve seen some really creative solutions to this issue, including people looking at, well, how much more do you make than me? And how can we maybe break down our financial responsibilities based on that disparity within the relationship? So people on an individual level are having these conversations. But culturally, I think we are slow to evolve and really come to terms with, yes, a show of money at the beginning of or a relationship or a courtship. It can be a sign of interest. And I do believe that all genders deserve to feel that, to feel taken care of and to feel that, you know, someone has had a good enough time with you that they’d like to pick up the bill, whoever that is.
Krys Boyd [00:06:51] I mean, we’ll note that queer couples have only recently gained anywhere near the same freedom to date as openly as cisgender heterosexual couples. So how have same sex couples navigated these questions around dating economics without decades or centuries of cultural precedents to follow?
Myisha Battle [00:07:08] I love this question. Yeah, I mean, with my queer clients, there is more of a sense of give and take and more of an ease, I think, in those conversations. It’s not that if I pick up the check today, I am taking on the role of financial provider in the relationship. I just don’t think that those cultural expectations are ingrained. And I don’t think that the expectation to have someone pay because of a perceived gender expression in the relationship also exists, although, you know, it could vary from couple to couple for sure.
Krys Boyd [00:07:44] It does seem helpful to just never assume anything, right? Not to assume that the first person to pay, whether male or female or some other gender, is, as you say, like under contract for paying for everything else. But sometimes, I guess in heterosexual relationships there are just assumptions made about how this is going to work that may not reflect economic reality for individuals.
Myisha Battle [00:08:09] There are so many assumptions made, and this really surprised me coming into the dating coaching space. And I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. I mean, one of the top dating books that’s been, you know, serialized and made into different things over the years was “The Rules,” right? Oh, yeah. The rules of dating. And so we really have decided that there are these rules, these codes of conduct. And now with the explosion of social media content around dating, there’s two things happening. One. People are able to share their real life and sometimes in real time experiences on dates, which is fascinating. But you also have a group of content creators who are telling you, okay, this is what needs to happen. And if he’s not doing this and he’s not an X, y, z kind of man for you, right? And I think that that is really dangerous at this time when gender roles are in flux and things are more complicated than perhaps we wanted to believe, even back when the rules was, you know, a very, very popular dating book. We now understand that the economic realities that we live in mean that we don’t have a one person provider model, although there are a lot of people in this country that want to bring that back. Okay. But, you know, we’ve all seen the price of eggs. So there’s something to this idea that we really have to encourage women to take on financial independence. But we have not provided space for men to come to the table with a different skill set for relationships as well. So that’s really where I see the central tension here.
Krys Boyd [00:10:00] Yeah. That’s so interesting that we often encourage our daughters to be able to sort of take care of themselves in, you know, however, we may define that often financially as adults, we don’t necessarily talk to our sons about the possibility that someone else in a relationship might earn more, but they might be more available for family responsibilities or things around the house.
Myisha Battle [00:10:22] Yes, the narratives around masculinity haven’t really changed, and we’re seeing that in the cultural backlash, too, where, you know, I recently learned about passport row culture, where, you know, men are taking themselves out of the US dating scene and using the earning power that they have as American citizens overseas to kind of fill that role as breadwinner, that they were told that they should be right. You know, they grew up believing that this was the role that they would fulfill. And then they come into a dating reality in which that’s maybe not always the case for them, or it’s becoming less and less of the case for them.
Krys Boyd [00:11:08] So why is it, I mean, the gender pay gap in men’s favor has not been entirely eliminated. Why is it, though, that many more women are out earning potential dating partners now than years ago?
Myisha Battle [00:11:21] Right. Yes. And that’s really important to point out that we still have a gender pay gap where women earn 84% of what men do on average. Where I’m seeing this is really in the, you know, middle strata of our class society in the United States, where women tend to and have been consistently earning, you know, bachelor’s degrees, master’s degrees and PhDs at a higher rate than their male counterparts. And so we’ve also seen and there’s such a huge cultural dialog around the loss of those good solid middle class to upper middle class earning jobs for men that were more in, you know, factories. And those jobs have just left, right. So there’s this tension that there used to be a world in which someone who was high school educated could enter into the middle or upper middle class and provide for a family. And largely those jobs were geared towards men. Not that women didn’t have them, but largely they were promoted to men. And women have really fallen into the higher education pipeline. So that’s where our economy has really moved. And the the people who have invested in that pipeline are the ones who are reaping the benefits. What I’m seeing saying to you, though, on the other hand, is we’ve also decided that tech is a really highly skilled. It’s it’s a highly skilled career that a lot of men have entered into. And I’m here in the Bay area, there are a lot of stereotypes about like men in STEM and men in tech. And, you know, they’re not always wrong. There’s a maybe a a soft skills deficit when we’re teaching people to invest in the more brainy careers. And we forget that, you know, these are whole people who need social skills, who need, you know, relationship development skills as well. So I think there’s there’s a lot going on and a lot of factors at play at this particular cultural moment in dating.
Krys Boyd [00:13:43] Myisha, in the days in, let’s say, the early to mid 20th century, when generally speaking, in this country, We assumed that men would have more money, better jobs, and pay for things. Men were willing to date women who had less education. They were willing to date women who had less money. Are young American women who might have more money in education than eligible men in their age bracket, open to dating those men who don’t earn as much as they do.
Myisha Battle [00:14:12] They are. That’s what I’m seeing in my practice as a dating coach. I can’t speak categorically about that. I am a person on the internet. So I did see I do see a lot of content about this. But, you know, women do expect that if they have invested in their education, they want someone who’s at their level. And and this comes down to economic need as well. If your interest are, you know, dining out at fine dining restaurants, traveling the world, and you’re used to that, you’re used to doing that with your cohort of friends, for instance, than dating somebody who doesn’t have the financial means to, you know, join you on those trips in the future can be challenging. So yes, I do think there there are those who are thinking long term about their quality of life and thinking, what sacrifices am I going to have to make? I mean, there’s also the real question of if I, you know, partner with someone who has debt and I don’t have debt, right? Am I responsible for that? And I do think that that’s a little bit different, right. I think historically, men who, you know, dated and married women who had less financial means than they did if their partner had a little bit of debt, that would be like, okay, you know, that’s understandable. That’s fine. We’ll take care of it. But I think we’re certainly in a different economic time than we were. And considerations about money are different. And we have to really understand that and face that reality. And I don’t begrudge someone. Evaluating those factors. I think that sometimes there are better factors to evaluate when thinking about partnership. But I don’t begrudge someone who was like, you know what? These are the things I like, and I don’t want to partner with someone who can’t at least meet me halfway and pay. Maybe their their share on this.
Krys Boyd [00:16:15] One reason I really wanted to talk to you after reading your piece in Time magazine, was that when we think about the ways that different amounts of available money can get in the way of relationships of all kinds, we often think that it happens on the side of the person who is wealthier, that they don’t want to hang around with someone who doesn’t have much money. In my experience, it’s often more uncomfortable for the person who has less money. And I’m curious about whether men who don’t have as much as women they might be interested in dating are the ones who are reluctant to start those relationships.
Myisha Battle [00:16:49] This is something I’m also seeing. I think that for a lot of my clients, they really are open to anyone. Sometimes they’re like, flat out, I make so much money. You know, they’re they identify as high earners. So they’re like, look, I, I could pay for daycare right now. You know, there’s there’s no financial barrier to me starting a family, you know, getting married, all of these things. If my partner earns less. No big deal. I think that’s when things get very challenging. When a woman is a high earner. Number one, I think people just see, you know, the degrees attached and get intimidated. And men can sometimes opt in and say, yeah, I mean, she seems cool. This is great. And then the deeper they get into the relationship, the more uncomfortable they may feel with someone who is that much of an out earner than they are. So yeah, that financial tension can come into play at different times in the process of dating. And I definitely have worked with women even who aren’t super high earners, but who make a good living and are financially independent, who express time and time again that they just are given the feedback, that they are intimidating for the jobs that they hold and the money that they make. Yeah.
Krys Boyd [00:18:11] Women in the 21st century who want to ask a man for a date, a first date are not likely to find themselves like, gossiped about or socially ostracized in some way. But are you finding that young women and I’m seeing young women here because we’re talking about people who are dating, obviously people of all ages date, but are young women still broadly preferred to be the ones asked for a date rather than being the ones who initiate?
Myisha Battle [00:18:35] Yes. And what I’d like to say about that is that I think the reason behind that has changed. What I’m seeing is that a man asking a woman out is an expression of genuine interest, and a signal that perhaps this person may take equal ownership of the process of setting up a date and picking a place. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with clients who, and a lot of my clients use dating apps that they’ll match with someone, you know, get a conversation going, and they really feel that just time and time and time again, they’re the ones that are having to move the process forward. And there’s a sense of sort of feet dragging or hesitancy on behalf of their, you know, potential male partners. And so when, when I kind of try to get to the root of why do why do you need the guy to, you know, ask you’re into him, you know, why can’t you make that first move. It’s it’s the ball’s in your court too. That’s the the reflection that I get. Time and time again, it’s like it’s not just about the ask. It’s about the intention. And, you know, can I trust that this person is going to take initiative in all aspects of the dating process? Unfortunately, what that means is that the like few who are bold and brave enough to do this do it a lot and are sometimes misconstrued as people who have intentions that they might not have. They know that it works, is what I’m saying. So we also have to parse through that together in date in my dating coaching sessions to like, okay, we have to evaluate all these factors. And it’s tricky. It’s really, really tricky. I also have to step in and talk about the hesitancy on behalf of men in a post MeToo world. Right there. There are cultural reasons why I think it’s become more difficult for men to take that risk, and I want to acknowledge that as well.
Krys Boyd [00:20:48] There are etiquette rules, Myisha, even outside of romantic relationships, that mostly assume that if someone invites another person for, say, a meal out, the person who extended the invitation will be the one who picks up the check. If I asked a female friend to lunch and I’m heterosexual, it would usually be with the expectation that I am treating. Do those rules not automatically apply in heterosexual dating?
Myisha Battle [00:21:11] I don’t think so. I would like them to. I think that’s a very clean way, or even to say that the first date is, you know, we go Dutch regardless of how you know, how things progress. We just take that opportunity to say, this was a this was a one off. We don’t know where it’s going to go. So we’re both going to take equal financial responsibility. And I think that would be fine. And honestly, that’s what I did on my first date with my current partner. But yeah, I think things just get so muddied by the gender expectations. Honestly, I think that even if even if a woman ask a guy out, I think there would be pressure on the guy to pay. From both parties. It depends on the couple, right? But I’m somebody who also loves clear expectations and trying to, you know, encourage my clients to do the same. So yeah, if they’re asking if they’re like, hey, I want to do this thing or I want to invite you to this, this thing that I’m really into doing, would you like to come? Like you can also always say, like, and I’m happy to get your ticket or, you know, I’m happy to pay for this, right. And just let people know upfront that that is a treat on you. But I do think it’s a lot muddier, unfortunately, in dating.
Krys Boyd [00:22:32] I have to tell you, I would have assumed I’m Gen X. I would have assumed younger Americans dating in this brave new world of growing gender equality would idealize fully Egalitarian relationships. You have found, though plenty of younger daters who prefer what we think of as traditional roles within relationships. Is that equally true for men and women in your experience?
Myisha Battle [00:22:54] No, no, not in my experience, particularly because I identify as a feminist sex and dating coach. And so the clientele that I work with, regardless of gender, tends to skew more egalitarian. And they are open to having conversations about, you know, yeah. Why do you assume that this person might might pay even though you are asking them out? Right. So we we do get into those nitty gritty details. And I like to unpack, you know, the cultural expectations that we we’ve internalized and, you know, just ask questions about are they helpful or not? But my clients do skew I mean, I work with I work with clients as old as 60 And as young it’s like early 20s. And this is a this is a concern regardless of generation. These are really tightly held ideas about how we need to present ourselves and behave in heterosexual dating that just have not fallen away, even though we have made space culturally for different types of relationships, different types of, you know, gender expression. So yeah, this is this is something that will be ongoing that that people will be struggling with and trying to find a balance between, you know, how do I navigate this, given my financial reality and the way that I want to be perceived in a relationship? Because I think that’s valuable as well. You know, a lot of people do tie their femininity into the the idea of being taken care of and being shown affection or love through these financial gestures. And again, I don’t begrudge people who feel that way. We just have to look at that and say, okay, how can we create that given your financial reality, if you are making more money than the person you’re dating?
Krys Boyd [00:24:52] I also identify as a feminist. It’s not like on my business card the way it might be on yours, but I don’t have any particular interest for myself in very strict, you know, you know, binary gender roles within a relationship. But I have to tell you Myisha, it has occurred to me that there is a simplicity or an applied, implied simplicity to sort of doing things the way they used to be done within relationships, rather than all these challenging conversations and navigation of new ways of doing things.
Myisha Battle [00:25:25] Yes, I do think there’s a comfort in thinking that things were easier then I am fully aware that, you know, when I write pieces that, you know, sometimes I’m, I’m prone to hyperbole and my editor pulls me back and it’s like, well, you know, it’s been. It’s been hard for a long time. And this isn’t like the hardest time for dating. But I do think that it’s very complex. And we all are acutely aware of the tensions that are happening that are, you know, falling along political lines. So that’s another factor and aspect to dating right now that is very, very real. And those political lines also are affecting our ideas about gender and relationships and gender roles, specifically what is right or what is wrong. And that’s where as a feminist, my my hackles are raised right and I try to really center my clients and what is right for them, what would feel good, how would they like to be treated, and what are the signs that this this person is giving you, now, that they might be that for you. And let’s talk about the economics of it. Let’s talk about the politics of it. But ultimately, when it comes down to it, I really just care about how my clients feel. And if they do feel taken care of in the ways that are meaningful for them.
Krys Boyd [00:26:57] I suppose it would be one thing Myisha, in our politically polarized country, if roughly half of all men and women skewed more traditional to the right, roughly half skewed more progressive to the left. But what you’re finding is that among young people, those changes in politics are not evenly distributed by sex.
Myisha Battle [00:27:22] Right. Well, we have a, you know, Democratic Party that is very in favor of bodily autonomy and reproductive health and rights. And, you know, unfortunately, that message is more strongly felt by women. And I do think that it that everyone should feel that, you know, reproductive health affects everyone. But the messaging and the ideas that are being, you know, propagated by, you know, conservatives and the Republicans are really hitting home for a lot of women, and they don’t like the direction that the Republican Party has gone. And again, not all women, right? Plenty of women voted for Trump in this last election. But culturally, I think we are seeing a skewing more towards liberal values for women. And then a a desire to return to an age in which, you know, men did have more sway in relationships in terms of finances and that that heartstring was really plucked by the rhetoric that we were going to bring jobs back to the US for that growing, you know, middle to lower middle class group of men who feel disenfranchized by what’s been happening in this country. And so, yeah, there’s been some really great reporting around this. I, you know, I was listening to the run up from The New York Times and one of their last episodes right before the election talked about this specific divide. And I found that to be very fascinating and kind of an inspiration for this piece that I wrote for time. But yeah, we’re we’re navigating this, the skew of both sexes, sort of. Being motivated by very important things, but very different things that are perhaps polarizing them even more. And, you know, there’s cultural representations of this, too, on Love Is Blind, the most recent season, someone has a conversation about what are your thoughts on Black Lives Matter? And it’s two white people and the guy’s like, um I’m not really political. And the woman’s like, that’s not going to work for me, right? So those are conversations that I’m seeing in my practice all the time, too. And because we have this world of dating apps where you can put so much of, you know, your political ideology into your profile. A lot of times that’s what people are seeing and swiping on. You might have the best profile photos in the world, but if you don’t align politically, then it’s going to be a no go for someone.
Krys Boyd [00:30:17] Why you should. You’ve discovered in your practice that for young women, especially from immigrant and low income families, even young women who themselves earn enough money to take care of themselves financially, there can be a particular social and cultural pressure to find a male partner with higher economic status. What is that about?
Myisha Battle [00:30:39] Patriarchy, again.
Krys Boyd [00:30:43] That could be the answer for everything you know.
Myisha Battle [00:30:46] Honestly and truly. But no, I mean, it is true. I mentioned earlier in our conversation that this notion of marriage is often a, you know, historically has been it’s a financial arrangement. It’s an economic arrangement between families. And, you know, whether or not we articulate that outright or have it more internalized as a subconscious idea. A lot of families do still believe that, you know, you’re marrying into this other family. What can they bring to us? What can they provide? Our ecosystem of a family. And so that can be very difficult to navigate when you’re someone who, you know, does have maybe a lower socio economic background, but who has made it to a point where you are financially independent and you’re serving the the lay of the land and know to saying, well, you know, maybe I’m not going to meet someone who’s exactly at my level. And I have worked with clients who have had family, who’ve criticized their choices of partner, you know, saying, you know, he doesn’t earn as much money as you. He doesn’t make enough. He’s not going to be good enough. He has debt. And I’ve also seen clients who have had their friends pushed back on their choices as well. A really striking and something that happened pretty early on in my time as a dating coach was an attorney that I worked with who found a guy that she really fell in love with. He worked at Trader Joe’s and I encouraged her to see him. There were all kinds of green flags at the beginning of their courtship, and her friends were like, what are you doing with this guy who works at Trader Joe’s? So, you know, I’m someone whose parents met working at a grocery store, so there’s a little bit of a soft spot for me. But I’m also someone who is in a partnership as well, where I have degrees and my partner does not. So I understand that tension and balance sometimes, and I understand the, the, the risk at times. But I also see the, the deep, deep value in finding real love.
Krys Boyd [00:33:07] You pose a question in this piece that is just fascinating, which is will dating ever be economically fair? And before we can tackle that? I think we have to ask, how should we define economic fairness in dating?
Myisha Battle [00:33:20] Right? Well, I think there’s a lot of questions about what is fair, especially when we live in a system that is kind of set up for all of us to fail. If I’m being honest, but I think a better question, if I could go back and rewrite it, is can dating be equitable? And I think thinking about what is equitable, what is what is right, what feels balanced in a relationship. That actually is, I think, a fantastic first date question to to ask of your date. What do you think would make dating more equitable? What would be an experience that you would find you really were valued and you were able to value your your date? And again, I come back to you. It’s going to be different for everybody. But if we were to apply that question to the various people that we’re dating and get that data and understand how people want to feel supported along their dating journeys. I think we have a lot of great information about how to, you know, treat each other better generally, I think, and this comes into the kind of like sex and hookup part of dating. But we’ve kind of stratified dating into, you know, I’m dating for marriage or I’m dating to hook up and I’m someone who believes that there’s there’s a lot of messiness and complexity to dating or I don’t love that dichotomy because it sets up that we’re supposed to treat people who were dating for marriage better than we’re treating the people that we are engaging with in sexual relationships. That’s not fair to me. Right? I think that’s a really unfair standard. Much like I think that having these gendered expectations of who pays, who does this, what does it mean if they don’t, you know, they’re a bad person or they’re a bad, you know, woman or man if they can’t do x, y, and Z, right? That’s not fair either. So the economics of it go beyond just who’s paying. The economics also are looking at the exchange of time and energy. Who’s doing that labor, who is feeling left out of the equation because what they have to offer isn’t being valued by our society. Yeah, I think there’s a lot of good questions there if we consider equity in dating.
Krys Boyd [00:36:01] Does the failure so far to fully recalibrate the rules around who pays and who earns more and that sort of thing. Could that explain why fewer young heterosexuals are choosing marriage these days? Or is the declining marriage rate mitigated by like the rates of people who form domestic partnerships, but maybe don’t go through with a wedding?
Myisha Battle [00:36:21] I think the latter. I think a lot of people are choosing cohabitation over marriage. But I also do know that this, You know, Gen Z and Gen Alpha are dating less, if you can believe it. I mean, they’re there. We’ve seen studies and studies that have shown that they’re engaging in sex less. They’re they’re less social in the ways that previous generations have been social. And these kind of like we have these these markers for young adolescence. We know what our social behaviors and patterns are. And sort of Gen Z and Gen Alpha are very different in, in how they’re presenting at those mile markers. So we may see continued shifts away from partnership in general. We may see that people are not interested in romantic partners. They’re looking more towards friends and groups. And, you know, I’ve seen this trend of women buying houses with each other, marrying our best friends, whether they’re, you know, a bestie, a female bestie or a gay bestie. So I do think we’re in a moment of people being very creative about the types of relationships that they’re entering into. And that also attributes to this decline in marriage as well, because I think so many of us have seen that marriage doesn’t work for a lot of us, or we’ve had the experience of being children of divorce or, you know, having parents remarry several times. And that may not be something that’s ideal for us.
Krys Boyd [00:38:05] Do you know, Myisha, if relationship dynamics in heterosexual relationships are less fraught in, say, Scandinavian countries where there is broadly more gender parity than in the United States?
Myisha Battle [00:38:17] It used to be that case. And I there’s been some shifts recently. It’s something that I need to look into more, because I saw an article that basically sounded like what’s happening here that, you know, we have seen and it’s not too surprising, I guess, when I think about it. But we have seen shifts to the right throughout Europe as well. I do think that there is this tension that can get created when there is this cultural dialog happening about returning to a better time or a simpler time, etc.? And what that is typically code for is more traditional gender norms and roles. So I think that this is this is something that a lot of people are finding tension over in their relationships all over the world. But yeah, it’s something I need to look more into.
Krys Boyd [00:39:14] Have we finally walked away from the very dated, maybe never true stereotype of women as gold diggers in this new reality?
Myisha Battle [00:39:24] Unfortunately, no. No, I have heard and and seen a lot of instances where that’s a fear that men still have. And it’s also something that I’m seeing kind of picking up on. And social media where women are, there’s still a cohort of women who believe that, you know, they want to marry up and they want somebody who has an abundance of money. So I don’t think we’re ever going to not see that combination. The very, very rich and powerful man with a woman who is very, very motivated and interested in that specific aspect of the relationship. That’s classic. I don’t think that’s going away.
Krys Boyd [00:40:14] What roles, Myisha, can men in heterosexual relationships carve out for themselves in the 21st century? If they are not, and probably never will be the primary breadwinner?
Myisha Battle [00:40:27] I love this question so much, because men are useful and valued for so many other things other than this role that we have given them of provider. You know, I, I think that provider and protector roles don’t always come naturally to men in the same way that, you know, a loving, maternal like, constant nurturer roles don’t always apply to women. We’ve just done a better job at giving women options to be something other than that, and we haven’t given men other options. You know, I think that’s starting to change. I’m seeing more and more men who are comfortable being more in touch with their emotions, expressing their emotions, showing up for the people in their lives and and tending and in ways that we would consider to be more like female coded. But yeah, I mean, there’s there’s so much I believe in the capability of men to show up as loving, supportive, kind partners and fathers. I believe that men have a tremendous ability to lend. Some of the gendered aspects of their upbringing to a relationship and that like, you know, I love a tinkerer. I love a man who can like a fix a thing. And you don’t have to be great at it. Just like, help me to right be interested in in creating a home with me and really work on looking at the the full scope of the relationship and nurturing all aspects of it. So that’s someone who’s invested in not just the day to day, okay, I’m paying. I’m paying the bills. I’m paying my share, I’m contributing. You know what I need to. But, you know, also thinking long term and strategizing. What do we as a couple want? How do we want to get there? How can I be of service to the relationship and to you? I think those are things that a lot of men do. We just don’t praise them for it. You know, there’s a lot, you know, a lot of good men out there who are not given the opportunity to be good men in partnerships because we don’t socialize them to do so. I just I want to be very clear that I think a lot of the shortcomings that a lot of my clients are experiencing are really based on the ways in which boys and young men are socialized, not because they don’t have the potential to be absolutely fantastic partners.
Krys Boyd [00:43:12] You’ve observed in your practice that a lot of your women clients are broadly comfortable with setting aside traditional gender roles around breadwinning. If they can have a partner they rely on emotionally. I’m curious, Myisha and presumably plenty of men want to be that partner but do men and women tend to define this the same way?
Myisha Battle [00:43:34] That’s a great question. I think there is a discrepancy between how we define emotional support. And again, that comes back to how men are socialized. There’s a really fantastic book called Equal Partners. And in it the author, I believe her name is Kate Mangino. Kind of talks about how women are socialized to notice and that this is a skill. But noticing means that we do tend to like, tend, and befriend. We’re socialized to sort of be more communicative in expressing, like our our inner worlds and partnering up with people to, to help us to, to actualize what we we we envision our lives to be. That’s what friendships are so, so wonderful for. Female friendships. Male friendships are very, very different. They haven’t always been this way but tend to be very parallel. So I’m having my life and I’m having it in parallel with you. We’re not really turning towards each other and having a collaborative, you know, generative friendship. And so without that skill set, it can be very difficult to figure out how to support each other.
Krys Boyd [00:44:57] Myisha Battle is a certified clinical sexologist. Her article for Time magazine is titled “The Dating Wealth Gap Is Getting Wider.” Myisha, thanks so much for making time to talk today.
Myisha Battle [00:45:07] Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciated this conversation.
Krys Boyd [00:45:10] Think is distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and anywhere you get podcasts or at our website think.kera.org. I’m Krys Boyd, thanks for listening have a great day.
