Are women less romantic than men?

watsonyrmind · 2024-03-11T10:57:57+00:00

You're 17 so you should learn this now: societal expectations you learn for men are not the default. You can't expect women to also observe societal expectations for men and that if they don't, it means anything at all. Women have their own set of societal expectations and it's very clear in your post that you have absolutely no idea what they are and haven't even spared a thought for that outside of your male experience. So next time, instead of expecting women to be exactly like men, remember that women have a completely different set of expectations and try to figure out what those are.

Men online talk a lot about how they have to make the first move and pay for meals on the first few dates like this is some huge burden. How about you instead complain about how you'd rather do your fair share of domestic labour, a burden statistically still overwhelmingly placed on women. Google any stat on unpaid domestic labour and the information will show women do far more. I expect your next post to be all about how you can't wait to bring more romance into your relationship by actually being an equal partner in your home. What do you think requires more effort and is more beneficial to a relationship, paying for the first few dates and making the first move or doing hundreds more hours of unpaid work for you and your partner annually? And why do you think you fixated on the piece of this that takes significantly less effort?

Women are also 3-4 times more likely to be physically injured by their partner. Why do you think you focused more on women initiating divorce without even giving consideration as to why while ignoring some insignificant piece like women being physically harmed in relationships? What do you think is more likely to remove the romance from a relationship, assaulting your partner or leaving a marriage that was probably already devoid of romance and possibly contained physical violence?

If all you do is think about men, what men typically contribute, what is expected of men, and don't think about what women contribute at all nevermind value it, why do you even care what women do? You don't seem to give them any consideration or appreciation, do you even want to date one? Do you think your future girlfriend or wife will feel loved by you while you remain blind to what she brings to a relationship because they aren't things men do?

And in the case of ignoring the female experience, how can you possibly expect to understand it or understand relationship dynamics? I hope you realize how little sense that makes.

pinkpugita · 2024-03-11T09:23:03+00:00

There's too many issues in your post that are not about romance.

Statistics show that women are more likely to stick with their terminally ill husband than the other way around. . When the woman is sick, they get 21% divorce rate while sick husbands get 3% divorce rate.

American husbands are statistically more likely to cheat than wives.

Ashley Madison, a dating website for infidelity, has mostly male membership, with 99% of female users just bots to boost the membership.

In the US, 80% of single parent homes are led by mothers, but only 1 out of 4 receive child support from the father.

You can check the statistics of sexual abuse and domestic abuse. There are plenty.

Nothing romantic about these things.

bluemagex2517 · 2024-03-11T12:15:29+00:00

I’ve heard so many stories about men doing these grand romantic gestures for women,

More grand romantic gestures don't make someone more romantic. Your conception of romance is really naive. Maybe "naive" is the wrong word. Maybe overly idealistic and formed with a lack of experience better describes it.

Some of the most romantic people are much more subtle. Everyday love can be amazingly powerful. The couple that genuinely enjoys each other's company day in and day out, but never does anything grandiose can be far more romantic than a couple that bickers all the time but occasionally does some giant gesture. Even when a couple does both the grandiose and the little everyday stuff, it's the little everyday stuff that will really matter to them in the long run.

I feel like the stereotype that women are more emotional and romantic is untrue

You were on the right track here. But you went too far. It's not that the opposite is true, but that both men and women can be emotional and romantic. It's an individual thing, and isn't divided much by gender.

The fact that some people think women are more and you think men are more illustrates this. Both have a lot of people who are and a lot of people who aren't and everything in between.

mikey_weasel · 2024-03-11T08:53:17+00:00

Hey mate up top - what are you basing your opinion on women on? Is this based on relationships you yourself have had?

I ask because this seems like a lot of very specific online talking points here. My own personal life has definitely not found any of the things you stated as generalities.

MechanicHopeful4096 · 2024-03-11T09:25:43+00:00

This is very generalized. If you want to take a look at statistics, men don’t seem to like their girlfriends better- have you seen the rates of domestic violence and how it disproportionately affects women? The rates climb higher once she’s pregnant.

Yes there are men who genuinely love their spouses and aren’t abusive, I’m not denying that. In a healthy relationship both partners show love to each other.

Women (and men) don’t just get divorced for no reason. Plenty of women work a full time job, take care of the children, cook, and clean while the husband barely helps out. Asking for help is seen as nagging, and after so many years we just get tired of it and opt for divorce. Many men feel blindsided because they had no idea what went wrong and thought she was just being a nagging wife all these years, but she was actually asking for help.

Other women simply don’t want to stay married and find the single life much more beneficial (remember it’s only somewhat recently we were able to get divorced in the west. Divorce rates were lower in the old days because women were chained to marriages whether they liked it or not).

Anyways, I don’t like to group people into statistics as it takes away from a person’s individual humanity. Certain people are more romantic than others, it’s not a monolith.

I’ve made the first move before when I was dating. I’ve dated guys who didn’t care about doing anything romantic, and I’ve dated others who were more romantic.

I do agree that women should also be able to propose first if they want. Why aren’t men helping to change the expectations that was placed on them? I’m not being sarcastic, I’m genuinely curious.

Stargazer1919 · 2024-03-11T12:21:45+00:00

Have you tried asking women what romantic things they do for their partner?

Exis007 · 2024-03-11T13:04:48+00:00

So...you're taking misogynistic cliche and saying "Supposing this is true, women are terrible". First, these are cliches and not particularly true. But let's talk about where they come from.

I’ve heard so many stories about men doing these grand romantic gestures for women, but it doesn’t seem like women do things like this nearly as much.

Grand romantic gestures aren't the materiality of love. They are often short-handed in the movies. No one wants to film "real" romantic gestures, because they would look really boring in a movie. My husband makes the coffee every morning, which is probably the nicest thing anyone does for me all day. It's very small, and if you tried to make that a key moment in a movie, it wouldn't emotionally resonate. But real romance between two people is small. It's not a big bunch of balloons, a picnic by the lake, an elaborate gift. You'll do that sometimes too. We split who plans Valentine's Day and whose year it is to receive, so I do 50% of that. I am amazing at gifts, so birthdays and Christmas can be kind of big. I sometimes bring him home flowers for no reason and vice versa. But the most romantic things I do are very small. I cleaned out his car for him because I had some free time. I wrapped his gifts for the party because I was already wrapping mine. He's got a headache, so I find the heating pad and the pain reliever and a big glass of water, turn the TV on to something he'd like, and give him some space. Real couples don't take each other on hot air balloon rides to prove their love. It's more akin to "Your day was shitty, let me order take out and you can just space out by yourself with some video games. I'll watch the kid". No one makes movies about that because it's not as fun to film as the hot air balloon.

Women file for divorce way more, they tend to move on faster,

I know you already said this wasn't a great example, but I'd note that no one told you the real reason (in my opinion). This has been studied. Women file because women do the vast majority of the admin tasks in the house. They make doctor and dentist appointments. They handle the paperwork. In a dying marriage, women are most likely the one still doing the work, ergo women will presume (rightly or wrongly) that they are going to be the ones handling the work of the divorce. Someone has to file and someone has to respond. Who does which job doesn't make a ton of difference except it gets the ball rolling. You don't have to want the divorce more, to have ended the marriage, or even to be happy about it ending to say "I guess I'll file the paperwork". If you look at your own childhood, who filled out the vast majority of your school forms? I bet it's mom. I think that's the better explanation.

Other possible reasons include women often being in a financially weaker position and wanting to get a lock on child support, custody, and rights and responsibilities for kids. Imagine he cheats and he's in love with his mistress. They are moving in together because they are so in love. She didn't know, she didn't stray, she didn't end the relationship. But now the situation is complicated and her kids are hanging in the balance. The clock on who is supposed to have the kids living with them and who is paying support and who gets parenting time only starts when you begin the legal proceedings. He can just fuck off with his new girlfriend indefinitely. He can just take the money out of the joint account and vanish. So despite doing nothing wrong, women might be more inclined to file to hammer out custody and support and to protect the kids simply by necessity. Divorce is fucking complicated, I suppose is the best way of thinking about it. Who is doing what in divorce rarely correlates to what the materiality of fault looks like in the marriage.

The guy is expected to make the first move

This is probably true. Why, though? The answer is that women make first moves all the time, they are just subtle. This is often because express interest in a man turns him off. A woman saying, "Come back to my house (let's fuck being implied)" or "Go on a date with me" or "Be my boyfriend" often pushes men away. So you have to go about it differently. Women get and give this advice amongst themselves frequently. How true it is? Hard to say. But subtle first moves might be flirting, showing interest, joining a club he's a part of, finding reasons to be in his line of sight or his path. You can make yourself seem available and interested, to find reasons to be near or at hand, to make conversation, to be obvious in your interest. All in the hopes that he'll buy a clue and ask you out. So let's say it works and he realizes you might like him and he asks you out. Who made the first move? Some people will say "Well, he asked for the date and that's the first move" and that's one interpretation. But she picked him months before he bought a vowel and solved that puzzle. It's just she didn't come out and say it because she felt, rightly or wrongly, that he had to feel like it was his idea.

pay for everything

Almost never. This just isn't the reality.

propose

Yeah, probably this one still holds water. Though, I got "proposed to" but I brought up marriage first. I walked into my husband's office, said "On what kind of timeline did you think we'd be married?" and he gave me some answers and I gave some back. We agreed on a timeline together. He picked out a ring and proposed. The decision to be married is rarely a surprise. You talk about it well in advance. Then usually the man proposes. It's anachronistic, but it still happens that way.

nd do all the work in bed while she just lays there

Hold your horses! Look, some people like this, mutually. Some people want to be a pillow princess and some people are happy to sleep with a pillow princess. It's a kink. If you're down for that, by all means. But if you want active participation and you're not getting it from a partner, stop sleeping with that person. That's not normal or good unless you both agree to that arrangement explicitly. Women like sex, friend! I promise we do. Healthy couples are flipping back and forth between giving and receiving, participating and laying back, being active and passive. Sometimes you both can't do things at the same time because of physics. That's not physically possible. So you trade off, take turns, and share the spotlight.

This idea comes from an old Victorian ideal of sex. Women didn't like sex, didn't want sex, and no self-respecting women had it outside of the reason to have a baby. That was bullshit then and it's bullshit now. But the reason this narrative was so popular is because women didn't want to have sex because they didn't want to die. Everyone was out there dying in childbirth. They have no obstetrical care. So there was a collective lie believed that women hated sex out of self-protection so you weren't rolling the dice as often on your untimely demise. No obstetrical care, no antibiotics for infection, no C-sections, no pain relief, no one to help you. For a long time, midwives were the source of medical care for pregnant women and they had a great deal of generational knowledge on how to help. Then as medical science came to power during the Victorian era, male doctors edged out midwifery and sent those ladies and their hard-won knowledge packing and showed up to do it themselves. Except they knew nothing due to taboos of studying female bodies and women started dying in droves. That's one piece of the history. The other was just the kind of general rise in religious beliefs and the old Christian standard that sex was bad except for procreation. Not a popular idea for all of history, but certainly popular during the Victorians. Female sexual pleasure returned to the discourse by way of Freud in like the 1890's. But it was Freud's model of sublimated desires and childhood sexual development which is weird and bonkers and wrong. You didn't have an idea of modern sexual desire, what you and I would study if we took a college class in it, show up until the tail end of second-wave feminism in the 1960's and 1970's. That might feel old to you, but from a historical perspective, it's basically brand new. It means it was new to the Boomers if you're thinking about this in terms of generations. That means a lot of old modes of thinking were still popular and repeated in media, especially old media. And you have new and competing models of pilled thinking new on the scene of the discourse. So that's where these old, outdated, never-true ideas come from culturally and why they are still getting repeated today.

ShinyTotoro · 2024-03-11T14:28:53+00:00

You claim a lot without giving any examples or real statistical data.

I’ve heard so many stories about men doing these grand romantic gestures for women, but it doesn’t seem like women do things like this nearly as much

What kind of stories? What do you consider a grand romantic gesture? Because I know from experience that the ideas about what counts as 'romantic' can vary greatly, to a point where what a man considers 'romantic', a woman could consider creepy or pushy.

imhereforthemeta · 2024-03-11T16:29:33+00:00

“Do all the work in bed while a women just lays there” I assure you if that’s the kind of sex you are reading about, none of your colleagues are with a man who can actually have sex well. I grew up and aged assuming sex was supposed to be painful and unpleasant because this is how sex was modeled to me. Many guys just want to plow into a woman like she’s a human flashlight and this is not a fun experience for women FYI. If you are having good sex, a women is going to be more actively engaged because she actually wants to be. Women are more or less taught that their pleasure isn’t required for sex and men are taught that their pleasure mean everything.

Your post is full of ignorance and a clear parroting of fantasy without actually experiencing the real world but I haven’t seen anyone comment on this aspect of it so that’s what I’ll focus on.

TheVenusProjectB42L8 · 2024-03-11T18:57:26+00:00

I hate these posts.

Why should women sit around and debate our worth, especially compared to men?

If you think this about us, then so be it. The only misery you are going to cause with this line of thinking, is your own.

senorbuzz · 2024-03-11T20:41:53+00:00

If you love men so much more than women why don’t you look at being in a relationship with a man? Genuine question.

mountgrynn · 2024-03-11T19:50:17+00:00

A lot of other comments have already said this but I really think it can’t be said enough: you’re conflating societal expectations with actual romance.

The American Sociological Association in 2015 found that women may file for divorce more, but men actually initiate non marital break ups more. “Rosenfeld said his results support the feminist assertion that some women experience heterosexual marriage as oppressive or uncomfortable. -Husbands still expect their wives to do the bulk of the housework and the bulk of the childcare.”

Women typically report lower satisfaction and happiness in relationships which is one explanation, the other being that because women are typically given the “housekeeping” paperwork, they’re the ones that file. And just because women FILE doesn’t mean they’re the reason for the divorce or are even wanting to get divorced.

And the guy being expected to pay for dates and propose doesn’t mean he’s more romantic, that’s just the unfortunate consequence of gender expectations. I could go on about the concept of a “shut up ring” and the phenomenon of men who get married not because they love their partners are even want to get married, but feel societal pressure to.

Also, I think this is a good reminder to not generalize based on data taken at face value and anecdotal evidence. Because I could just as easily say the men aren’t as romantic as women because science shows they’re “visual creatures” who only care if the women is hot and stays hot, and don’t care about her personality, job, or accomplishments because I read in the dating advice subreddit that guys don’t care if the girl is smart or accomplished as long as she’s mildly attractive, skinny, and flatters their ego.

inkybreadbox · 2024-03-11T21:21:14+00:00

Fucking yikes, bro.

UnhingedGirl80 · 2024-03-11T15:21:43+00:00

I don't know. Check media centered around romance who their target audience/bigger consumers are.

latenerd · 2024-03-11T14:24:08+00:00

Are women less romantic? Possibly. Sex and romance are games for men. They carry much heavier risks and consequences for women, who maybe tend to be more pragmatic as a result.

Do women put less effort? Absolutely not. Women do the majority of emotional and household labor, and are now expected to pay 50 % as well. The person who suggests therapy is usually the woman. The person who tries to improve or save a relationship is usually the woman.

Women don't move on faster, it's just that they start mourning the relationship sooner because they know something is wrong. Men are often "blindsided" at the end because they weren't listening or trying while she was still there.

xvszero · 2024-03-11T14:09:52+00:00

There are 8 billion people on the planet. It's ok to just admit that we don't know enough about them to make sweeping generalizations.

oldcousingreg · 2024-03-11T18:15:21+00:00

Let’s go over this.

I feel like the stereotype that women are more emotional and romantic is untrue, I think it’s actually the opposite.

What is the basis of your feelings, besides what you’ve observed among your friends?

I’ve heard so many stories about men doing these grand romantic gestures for women,

Examples?

but it doesn’t seem like women do things like this nearly as much.

What led you to this conclusion?

Women file for divorce way more,

Source?

they tend to move on faster, and

“Move on” in what way? What metrics are you using to measure this?

men generally seem to like their girlfriends more than women like their boyfriends.

Again, based on what?

The guy is expected to make the first move, pay for everything, propose,

What examples are you referencing to make these points?

and do all the work in bed while she just lays there.

Is this how they teach sex ed nowadays?

From what I’ve seen it seems like women are generally colder than men.

This is a logical fallacy called faulty generalization.

All of this has led me to believe that women are less romantic than men, and don’t put as much effort into relationships.

See above.

Edit: I have realized that the divorce part is not a good example, so ignore that

If it’s a bad example, don’t use it.

SweelFor- · 2024-03-11T09:26:09+00:00

I wrote this for you https://old.reddit.com/r/IncelExit/comments/1ae0oyw/here_is_an_extremely_important_concept_the/

Snicker94 · 2024-03-12T23:18:21+00:00

Well apart from humans the whole species behave like that so I don't understand why it's hard to put this on your mind that why males try to attract females. Not even for once I have seen any peacock making faces that why the hell I need to dance in order to attract females peacock to mate with me or why this shit and that. It's how nature work that's the end. Now kindly understand that while you say women file for more divorce cases and men don't then if you read the statistics and research on human psychology a man can sleep with women even if he hated her until he finds a replacement. This is the reason when men loose there wives they replace them within a year while women look after themselves all alone. Now here don't come up with individual experience because I'm talking about majority. Men doesn't grand gesture to attract there female partners and assert there masculinity among other males. This is a very deep down research and you realise why sudden things happen in certain ways always no matter what era we belong too actually.

Havel68 · 2024-03-22T14:49:38+00:00

Isn't this just a case of only seeing things from the point of view of the man as that is what you most easily identify with?

Women do file for divorce more often but they often do that when they are at the absolute end of their rope after many years of a toxic home environment. Now this could be because both partners have emotional issues, lack relationship skills, treat one and other with disrespect but many women also divorce men they may still love and have feelings for but who has serious issues with alcohol, drugs, porn addiction, over spending, being abusive in some way, cheating, checking out of family life in some way and so on and has ignored repeated attempts from his wife to resolve these issues. Now I am not saying that only men have these issues, women can also do all of these things but if you read a man online saying how his wife divorced him and took everything after he was a great husband and father, how do you know he isn't conveniently leaving out how his own behaviour contributed to the failure of his marriage? You may find you take his word that he was a great guy because you more strong identify with him, that is a cognitive bias.

For example we had a neighbour when we were teenagers a nice, decent man on the surface with a stay at home wife and two kids, he was regarded as handsome and had a good job and a nice stay at home wife with two kids. When she left him people were saying how could she leave such a great guy but we could hear him through the walls as our houses were joined and he was a real monster to her and the kids so abusive and controlling there were even times my parents called the police they were so concerned. He would even unplug their phone and take it to work with him so she couldn't even call her mother, other times in the winter he would disable the heating and the power and take parts to work with him and my own mum would take her and the kids in as they were so cold and couldn't cook anything to eat. My dad wanted to knock this guys head off more than once. Still people thought she was a bad women for breaking up her marriage because they took the guys word for it.

If you ask women many will say that they feel that it is men who move on quickly that they feel that men seem to find it easy to replace them. That a man will leave them, ignore their own biological kids, stop seeing them, stop helping financially but act like a father to the children of their new girlfriend. Many women feel that they are the ones who take time out to heal, who don't date for a year or more while they figure out what went wrong or try to rebuild their self esteem. While a man will happily jump into a new relationship with any women who will have him. There are also lots of women who have been, they feel happily married for many years good relationship, home life, sex life and then one day the guy comes home and starts telling them how he feels trapped, how he's not happy, has been unhappy for a long time, years even maybe even that he's never been happy, that he felt pressured into marrying her, having kids. That his wife and the life she imposed on him has held him back from achieving his dreams. He wants to take a step back from family life to find himself, spend time at the gym or doing a hobby and maybe then he'll feel better or he wants to move out, have a trial separation while he figures things out. Some women call this "the script" and it refers to a common experience that many women have when their husbands have met another woman they want to pursue a relationship with. Instead of just being honest and telling their wife up front that they have had their heads turned by another woman they rewrite history to make it seem like the wife is some evil witch who has ruined their lives and manipulated them into marriage and children and that he's never been happy with her, it it wasn't for her he'd be ripped, have a great career, be rich or whatever, just dumping all his grievances at his wife's feet and taking no responsibility for his own part in how his life is. Its a common thing women report.

So of course that again is only one side of the argument and perhaps we aren't hearing from the wife everything although often women do tend to turn blame inwards so they worry its because they never lost all the baby weight or because they didn't please him in bed or whatever. In the cases above it could seem that men are the cold one's, its all about what you hear, which side you identify with and whether you make the effort to stand back and be a bit more objective about what you are hearing and perhaps not hearing.

Big romantic gestures are in my opinion kind of cheap and meaningless, they might be fun for people who like to be showy and put things online but they really have no bearing on how good or long lasting or devoted a relationship is. Its not the bed strewn with rose petals or a gold necklace that proves you are loved its when your partner is there for you through thick and thin, when the support you when you need it and you do that for them, that's what love is, its sometimes sacrificing your own needs and desires to put some you love first, when you each do that for the other that is the real romantic gesture.

TheLastManStanding01 · 2024-12-20T00:38:46+00:00

Since no one else will tell the truth I will.

Men are the true romantics

You’re absolutely right the romantic gestures men make are rarely reciprocated.

In fact women are often turned off by romantic gestures and will respect you less for making them. Something about about being romantic makes them perceive you as weak. I’ve experienced it personally and seen it happen to others.

Ok-Woodpecker-8824 · 2025-09-22T03:34:36+00:00

Yes, look at the actions of both sexes

Digital-Bionics · 2024-03-11T10:51:20+00:00

I've seen a lot of it happen to men that aren't fussy about the women they pair with.

Title	Are women less romantic than men?
Author	Candid_Drawer_4856
Upvotes	0
Comments	183
Date	March 11, 2024 8:36 AM UTC (2 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/ExRedPill
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/exredpill/comments/1bbygbf/are_women_less_romantic_than_men/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/ExRedPill/are-women-less-romantic-than-men.1426206 https://theredarchive.com/post/1426206

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