Interesting follow up to 'English men are crap'

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The question of who pays for dinner may appear small and inconsequential, but the assumptions underlying these arrangements are not.

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 9 August 2002 08:10 (twenty-two years ago) link

i suppose if its a 'new' date then these concerns apply, but as far as i'm concerned, people with money pay for stuff and help. when i have been skint, people have paid for me and i appreciate this, when i have money i pay as much as i can. this goes for anybody i know, not just 'dates' or whatever.

― gareth (gareth), Friday, 9 August 2002 08:16 (twenty-two years ago) link

Same with me. If someone expected me as a matter of course to pay on one of these odd 'date' things you Americans have, I'd have very serious doubts about them.

― RickyT (RickyT), Friday, 9 August 2002 08:34 (twenty-two years ago) link

What irratated me about this one:

"Making good money" was key to my self-respect.

That's her problem and not ours.

― Richard Jones, Friday, 9 August 2002 08:45 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well, she says it WAS key to her self-respect (aged 23 having just started her career). I think she is making the point that it IS our problem, that is, society's. Where other financial transactions are so central to status and success in society, how can payment for dinner not be a loaded issue?

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 9 August 2002 09:12 (twenty-two years ago) link

i don't know, but i've had enough of loaded issues, i've had enough of subtexts, i've had enough of money being the central and defining feature of peoples outlook. oh, i know its all to do with empowerment and stuff, but sometimes i'd just like people to be nice and for it not to matter who pays for what, i don't care whether i pay, we split, they pay, whatever! when i didn't have any money, people were kind, people took me out because i couldn't afford it. people can be so damn proud!

― gareth (gareth), Friday, 9 August 2002 09:19 (twenty-two years ago) link

I agree Gareth. I wish it wasn't important too, but sometimes it is. (Though usually in a relationship where there are other problems, in my experience.)

― Archel (Archel), Friday, 9 August 2002 09:30 (twenty-two years ago) link

Blimey, this chick really needs to relax. If you're going to define value, self-worth, equality in purely fiscal terms, you will be bloody miserable.... regardless of whether you're a man or a woman or who gets the bill or who tastes the wine. This article really reminds me of that terrible political correctness of the early 90s where people had to be so careful how they said things that they stopped saying interesting things at all. If you're busy getting apoplectic about who pays the bill then you're really not enjoying yourself and you're not really concentrating on the stuff that matters.

― Jane, Friday, 9 August 2002 10:34 (twenty-two years ago) link

Worrying about that kind of thing is so silly. I have never cared about that sort of thing -- it just comes down to who has money at the time.

― Nicole, Friday, 9 August 2002 12:53 (twenty-two years ago) link

Ooo, look, a mammoth and Leah McLaren both make appearances!

Err I think some people here are completely missing her point, which is less that economic agency is personal worth and more that being stripped of it, or assumed to have none, negates the efforts and accomplishments of a whole lot of women. It treats those accomplishments in some sense as cheap, implying that any amount of effort or success is still secondary to this gender division.

The male response to this is possibly more vapid and hideous than the McLaren article.

But the male-paying tradition continues, I think, based on the continuing arrangement that men pursue women, and not the other way around -- an arrangement itself based on the idea that men want sex more than women and will put in pursuit-effort in the interest of getting it. Should that change / can that change / given current circumstances exactly how arbitrary is it -- ?

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 August 2002 14:40 (twenty-two years ago) link

This thread is making me hum "You gotta have a J-O-B/If you wanna be with me".

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Friday, 9 August 2002 14:55 (twenty-two years ago) link

In the context of a 'date', I thought it was whoever did the asking did the paying (or at least made an offer to pay).

― rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:10 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well the dearth of men in Manhattan (and the proportion of them who are full-time members of failing rock bands) skews the norm a bit.

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:13 (twenty-two years ago) link

(girls with office jobs: pick out your own dirty rock boy and feed him when he's broke!) (ideal reversal) (we boys can be women too)

― nabisco (nabisco), Friday, 9 August 2002 15:24 (twenty-two years ago) link

we boys can be women too

Yes. Yes we can. :-)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 9 August 2002 20:18 (twenty-two years ago) link

if she made so much money how come she was living paycheck to paycheck?
and since when did the guardian allow a wall street journal reader to write for them? i am sure they are getting all sorts of complaints.

― keith, Sunday, 11 August 2002 22:11 (twenty-two years ago) link

I've never thought this was a very feminist issue. But recently I've realised that there are people out there (men and women) who despise me a bit because I let my friend pay my way - even though he has more disposable income than me and I am confident this is not about him gaining power over me.

So perhaps it is an issue because even though we - the two people at the table - understand its not about power there are people out there who do and will judge you accordingly. And, since I'm talking about people I work with, I don't really want to seem like a feeble girl in front of them. Maybe I should be more careful about this?

― isadora, Monday, 12 August 2002 02:33 (twenty-two years ago) link

What stood out for me was:
'I had gone through Harvard planning to become a philosophy professor. ...I also felt trapped financially as never before. ...It was years before I could eat squid ($3 for a 5lb frozen block) or liver (60 cents a pound) again.

By the end of the spring semester, I had lost interest in teaching philosophy: I knew I would go mad if I had to spend the next five years like this. The only ambition that made sense to me was to become rich. I passionately wanted to be able to say that I was successful'

'Successful' is defined as being a Wall Street Whatever with more money than a Philosphy Professor in preference to being a Philosophy Professor.

'even if it was just to myself that I said it. Money was a good thing...But the status that money provided was an even better thing.'

More status than being a Philosophy Professor? Only to those whose opinion I would disregard.

― Tim Bateman, Friday, 16 August 2002 15:37 (twenty-two years ago) link

having worked in an office
where everybody earns at least 25-
30 k a year, and having *seen* some of
the people that those people
go out with, on the basis usually
of them having the same earnings as them
i can only say for the trillionth
time that yep, take it from one who knows -
it really is what's goin on inside that
counts.

the last person i remember saying that
earnings were 'a good marker'
for what you have done
with your life etc. was anne robinson.

― piscesboy, Saturday, 17 August 2002 14:30 (twenty-two years ago) link

I do think the normal rule of etiquitte is that whoever does the asking out should at least offer to pay. If other arrangements, such as splitting the bill, are agreed on after the offer is made, that's fine.

― Sean (Sean), Saturday, 17 August 2002 14:41 (twenty-two years ago) link

Well but Sean, for heterosexuals there's also the "normal rule of etiquette" that men ask out women, and not so much the other way around -- so saying "who asks, pays" isn't hugely different from saying "who has a penis, pays."

Again, not that I'm complaining.

― nabisco (nabisco), Saturday, 17 August 2002 17:44 (twenty-two years ago) link

Nabisco may have hit the nail on the head; what we need to change is the etiquette that men have to virtually always do the asking. Of course, there's an obvious problem here (if not two).

― Tim Bateman, Monday, 19 August 2002 11:11 (twenty-two years ago) link

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