
Apps like Tinder are a symptom of gender imbalance in the dating market - walterbell
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/08/26/hookup-culture-isnt-the-problem-facing-singles-today-its-math/
======
Al-Khwarizmi
I guess it's because I am an European and the culture is really different in
the US, but I find this article really... exotic.

Are the so-called "mixed-collar marriages" that uncommon in the US? Here it's
a rather normal thing. It's true that many graduates end up with other
graduates because they meet at university or at work, but I know a lot of
those "mixed-collar marriages" and almost no one I know, except for one or two
gold-diggers, thinks that people with more or less studies than them are
outside their dating pool.

Also, the concept that women invariably want long-term relationships and
marriages while men want to hook up is something that I associate with past
generations. At least here, now it tends to be the opposite. In the vast
majority of young couples I know, it's the man who wants to get serious and
pushes for more commitment (living together, marriage and so on); while the
woman wants to be free and keep things more informal...

~~~
usrusr
I'm german and I see the "no mixed collar marriages" idea everywhere. It's
rare enough to see low-status academic (engineer, teacher) husband / high
status academic (law, medicine) wife, even though it certainly happens. The
opposite direction is certainly perfectly normal.

The perceived push for stability from the make partner is probably strongly
related to traditional gender roles (at least here in Germany, a crazy
stronghold of the housewife idea), which make the female partner correctly or
indirectly, consciously or subconsciously fear that she could lose her career
in the process, while the male partner would at most risk money and a few
years.

~~~
mcv
Engineer counts as low-status in Germany? That's certainly not something I
would have expected.

But from what I understand, Germans are a lot more status-conscious than the
surrounding countries, with more hierarchy, people often expecting to be
addressed by their titles, bosses not wanting to be addressed by their first
name, etc.

But I'm Dutch, and I know several men who work in construction, who are
married to university-educated women. I don't know what degree my brother-in-
law has, but he hasn't been to university, unlike my sister (though I wouldn't
call him less educated; he educates himself). And since I never graduated, I'm
technically also married to a woman with a higher degree (though her degree is
lower than the one I would have had if I'd continued, so I consider myself
higher educated than her until she gets that MBA).

So I'd say it's fairly common here.

~~~
usrusr
Engineers go to work dressed like bums and chances are that their boss isn't
an engineer (implying a stagnant career, which easily explains the lack of
ties). They are the working class of university graduates, low status indeed.

~~~
mcv
The fact that people look down on people who actually make stuff is a sad
commentary on our society. That being forced to dress like a drone is seen as
higher status than having the freedom to dress as yourself, is too.

------
lqdc13
I guess I really don't get it. Why do women use Tinder when they could be
using OkCupid?

It's literally 25-28% women and 72-75% men in the Bay Area. These are the
numbers I got from scraping OkC profiles that had words in them. There are
more college educated men than there are women. There are more masters+
graduated men than there are bachelor+ women.

Even in NYC, there is something like 60% men compared to 40% women (and I'm
being generous here).

From anecdotal evidence, you are also much more likely to get a boyfriend as a
girl than a hookup on OkCupid compared to Tinder.

I asked several girls why they use Tinder, and they basically tell me that it
is because they think that by having an intercourse, they can get the guy to
like them more, leading to an instant relationship. But why not just start
with an instant relationship and not go through something you don't want to
do?

~~~
m12k
Tinder's swipe mechanic, while incredibly superficial, helps with the biggest
problem with OkC and other traditional dating sites: The experience is
horrible for women. Their inbox receives a torrent of marriage offers and
incredibly explicit sex offers from men they have no interest in. Tinder's
reciprocality system, where you both have to show interest before a chat is
even possible, solves this elegantly. The downside IMO is that it's incredibly
hard to find someone that you have more than a physical interest in. OkC's
matchmaking questions and match% system is actually a really good solution to
this. I think there's a business opportunity in combining the two - enforce
the reciprocality like Tinder does, but have matchmaking questions, so it can
try to pair you with more likely matches first. (OkC actually has a feature
like this, but when they don't enforce its use, it's entirely meaningless). Of
course this would begin compromising Tinder's other big advantage, the
incredibly easy setup (it doesn't really _feel_ like making a dating profile,
so it attracts a much wider audience) - but I think it'd be worth
experimenting with nonetheless.

~~~
lqdc13
OkC has (or had when I used the site) a quickmatch mechanic where it's
essentially the same. If both sides match, both receive a message that they
matched each other.

I guess all they could do is just filter all messages and only keep the
quickmatch mechanic? Initially, they had something like that as well!

Basically a forced requirement that someone can set. Such as... you can only
message me if this or that. One would be only if I first match you. They had
more success when they got rid of that mechanic.

~~~
m12k
The problem is that they try to fully integrate Quickmatch with the existing
system. That means that swiping right on someone in Quickmatch is the same as
liking them on their profile page. And as a paying user, I can see who likes
me without having to like them back. So the anonymity of showing interest that
is not reciprocated is completely lost. If Tinder did this they'd lose most of
their users. And frankly, adding this on top of an existing platform as an
opt-in is just hopeless - it just exacerbates the problem of too much
configuration to get started. Not to mention focus (or even space) in the UI -
Tinder works because swiping and chatting are the only two things you can do.
This would only ever work as a new app.

------
MrBuddyCasino
Bullshit. Women use Tinder for sex, not to find a spouse. For some guys it
seems hard to face the fact that many women just like sex, a lot. Source:
several women I've talked to.

~~~
dvt
Bingo. Mr. Birger fails to see the salient point here. Everyone knows what
Tinder is. It's a hookup app. Want a serious relationship? Don't use Tinder
and don't sleep with someone 30 minutes into getting to know them.

~~~
tolmasky
This is an oversimplification of both men and women. THe truth is most people
are looking for "I don't know" or "it depends", just like in real life. When
most people see a girl and ask them out, it would be absurd to think it's as
calculated as "for sure hookup" or "definitely to marry", it's just "this
person seems worth getting to know". Tinder is one of the few apps that
mirrors that reality by not asking you ridiculous things like "what are you
looking for?" It changes all the time and will absolutely change for the right
person. Same as in real life: plenty of long term relationships start in bars,
and that's OK. We all go to bars, sometimes you meet the right person there. I
am bewildered by why tinder is so hard to understand: it's essentially just a
bar, a slightly better bar actually since you know everyone there is single.

~~~
dvt
No, it's not an oversimplification of anyone or anything. I will say your bar
analogy is pretty good, though. If you go home with someone from a bar (that
you met that night), the general expectation is that it won't be something
serious.

I mean, come on, it's not that hard to see the overarching point here. Even
pop culture portrays it this way (see Knocked Up, Trainwreck, etc.).

~~~
tdkl
And general expectations overrule mutual agreements by two adults ?

Let's stop expecting things and expressing them openly.

------
aikah
> The downside? Women frequently wind up being treated as sex objects

yet

> but men generally must earn more in order to attract a wife

~~~
CmonDev
I have yet to see such an article without men-bashing.

------
soldergenie
People ask me why I, a software developer, don't move to Silicon Valley where
salaries are high and venture capital is easy to get. The skewed male/female
ratio of Silicon Valley is the reason. As an Asian-American male, I have a
hard enough time getting a date. Going to the valley seems like the odds would
be double stacked against me.

~~~
seren
But according to the article, you should move to Manhattan.

~~~
soldergenie
That's what I did. And dating here is definately easier than (random medium
sized American city). Of course, that might just come from being in a large
metropolitan city. Silicon Valley might be the same - I've never lived there -
but the male/female ratios indicate the odds aren't in my favor.

~~~
howlin
Silicon Valley is more of a suburb than metropolis. Though SF is probably
similar to NY with respect to dating prospects.

------
jevgeni
> As I note in my book, today’s lopsided gender ratios “add up to sexual
> nirvana for heterosexual men, but for heterosexual women — especially those
> who put a high priority on getting married and having children in wedlock —
> they represent a demographic time bomb.”

What kind of sexist crap is this? The problem for men in such an environment,
is that a lot of women start to accept the sex object treatment they get, and
hence aren't really the people you would want to be with for a long term.

Generalising a gender as only driven by dumb sex is sexist, even if that
gender is male.

~~~
omonra
Your being unhappy with a generalization as being 'sexist' is your own
problem. The rest of the world just doesn't care that you feel this way.

If you want others to actually listen to your view and not dismiss as
meaningless, you have to present data that contradict the premise you are
contending - especially when your view flies in the face of anecdotal evidence
all of us already possess.

~~~
jevgeni
What kind of /r/iamverysmart asshatery is this? I don't posses your anecdotal
evidence. Especially, when you yourself don't even bother to illustrate them.

For bonus points, you could try and prove why one would need evidence in this
particular case to prove that sweeping gender generalizations are sexist?

~~~
omonra
I don't give a shit what you think is sexist. It's a meaningless claptrap that
tries to substitute _truth_ for political correctness.

I care about facts being true or false.

For example here is a page that explains the issue:
[http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-
women...](http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women-
compare)

PS My dad's name is Yevgeni :)

~~~
jevgeni
It's like talking to an undergrad who just read Witgenstein.

You aren't defending the truth, but a simplistic model that can be used as an
excuse to be condescending and rude, where you take one assumptions as true in
all cases and troll on the internet.

It's simple predicate logic and is only accidentaly related to politness (not
political correctness). Saying "all heterosexual men are driven by sex" is
false when tested empirically. You can leave a million links in the comments,
but that statement will still not be true (excluding some trivial cases, like
non-existence of heterosexual men).

Even statements like "all men have a penis" or "all men are born men" will
fail. On the other hand, statements "some men are driven by sex", or even
"most men are driven by sex" will not fail. Interestingly, these statements
wouldn't be considered sexist by most. Which might suggest that sexism and
stupidity don't only go hand in hand, but are strongly related.

The article's wording is however absolute: "sexual nirvana for heterosexual
men" \- no quantifiers that might suggest any kind of relativity - and
therefore sexist and stupid. Asking for empirical evidence for my opinion is
like asking for empirical evidence of the fact that the set of all integers is
infinite.

If it helps you feel in control in a discussion, then please, be my guest. But
don't spout that self-righteous BS about "truth".

P.S. Not surprized about your dad, considering your Pelevin inspired nickname.

~~~
omonra
My initial angry reply had mostly to do with the perception that you were
saying 'Saying that men are more interested in sex than women is sexist and
should, therefore, be not mentioned'.

That is my pet peeve - current climate of PC whereby certain things that are
true should not be mentioned, lest they perpetuate the sad (in the eyes of the
speaker) status quo.

Now that you have clarified your position, it seems that you're mostly unhappy
with absence of the words 'in general' before the generalization. Ie the
phrase "“add up to sexual nirvana for _most_ heterosexual men" would pose no
problem for you.

This is a different type of issue - I don't mind people obsessed with
semantics (identity politicers are a different matter). What you are basically
saying is that 'Even if there is 1% of men who are less interested in sex than
women - that sentence if false'. While being technically true it misses the
fact that any statement concerning large sets of anything can have excptions.
The question is whether these exceptions are singular or sufficiently numerous
to render the generalization false.

I think that anything over 90% doesn't require qualifiers. Others may feel
differently - for example note that the author already went out of his way to
accommodate gays by talking about 'heterosexual men' as opposed to 'men'. So
he is effectively tipping his hat to you in order to satisfy the 4% of the
population who might react to the sentence with 'I don't care for sex with
women at all, what a stupid generalization that is!'.

Overall - I don't think you've made a case why the author is wrong to
generalize that men are more interested in casual sex than women.

~~~
jevgeni
Yes, the phrase you provided will pose no problem for me.

Yes, I guess this is where the evidence on both sides need to come in: whether
it's just semantics or not.

And I still think that such flagrant generalizations are harmful. We had the
same type of BS with "women are bad drivers", "women are bad at STEM", "women
only want to marry" and so on. It is as if some authors want to deliberately
pigeonhole groups of people, just to sell more books...

The 90% is a stretch I think. This is just a cartoonish view of men. Also one
has to keep inherent biases in mind when talking about social issues. Say you
have a group of people, about 60% of which like the colour purple. Chances are
that most of the other 40% will _say_ they like the colour purple, just to fit
in the group. Show them movies where all the heroes like the colour purple,
make all the celebrities profess their love the colour purple and 99% of the
group will say they __adore __purple.

But that won't be true.

------
usrusr
(Something I mis-posted elsewhere, in different wording) :

The mechanism described by the article is quite simple: for women as a group,
achieving equal or better education/career while at the same time insisting on
only considering a spouse of equal or better education/career just isn't
sustainable. The failure mode turns out to include easy sex for a few lucky
guys. Not exactly what feminism had in mind.

What the article completely ignores: it also means even less females for males
of the low education/career range, who were already hard pressed by "marrying
up" alone. This kind of gender imbalance is often comes with violence and is
therefore a much bigger problem than some prudish outcry over sinful tinder.

Hopes should go towards self-correction in the shape of considerable erosion
of the "marrying down" taboo. Once that happens, the observed disbalance will
have been just a temporary fluctuation on the road to greater equality.

------
cm2187
What I love is seeing the baby boom generation discovering with horror that
their kids are sexually liberated. No facebook to remind them what they were
doing in the 60s and 70s. Do as I say, not as I did when I was your age!

~~~
CmonDev
As long as sexually liberated people don't plan to marry less-sexually
liberated people after age 30-35 - it's all good.

------
wskinner
This is good, but it really just skims the surface. Something these articles
tend to miss is that sexual commodification doesn't necessarily favor men. On
Tinder, it probably favors women. For a more in-depth explanation of why, see
[http://worst-online-
dater.tumblr.com/post/114619524524/tinde...](http://worst-online-
dater.tumblr.com/post/114619524524/tinder-experiments-ii-guys-unless-you-are)

~~~
superuser2
This is dressed up as a scientific paper, but Tumblr is not exactly a peer-
reviewed journal, nor does this guy appear to be a formally trained scientist.
Would be interesting to see similar analysis from a more credible source.

~~~
ousta
yeah scientist or no the data will always favor the common consensual belief
of modern western world or if not they won't even talk about it. no need to be
"trained" scientist to do science.

------
kristofferR
This article perpetuates the damaging (for both genders) traditional sexist
notion that women really don't like sex and that men are the sex freaks.

Women like and think about sex just as much as men, but it's unfortunately
still not socially acceptable to believe that. The women on Tinder treat the
guys there just as much as potential "sex objects" (whatever that is supposed
to mean) as the guys do with the women. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The hookup culture/Tinder may suck for the people who want serious monogamous
relationships with marriage and children (although I disagree with the
premise, I think Tinder makes those kinds of relationships easier to initiate
too, but I digress..), but to make it seem like it's bad for women is absurd.

Women like sex and men like relationships. Women who have casual sex aren't
victims, just like men in relationships aren't victims.

------
MichaelMartens
That's true. The imbalance in dating apps are huge. Women are getting messages
daily and they are just overwhelmed. Therefore I would suggest you guys to
quit this "attention festival" and focus on approaching women in real life.
It's really not so difficult to learn it. If you would like to know how to do
this - read my post here: [http://bestdatingproductreviews.com/make-women-
want-you-revi...](http://bestdatingproductreviews.com/make-women-want-you-
review/)

------
dvt
Read the article earlier today and I just read it again because the first time
I honestly didn't really get its point. After reading it a second time, here
are my thoughts:

> In the Vanity Fair article, David Buss, a University of Texas psychology
> professor, claimed that apps like Tinder contribute to “a perceived surplus
> of women,” among straight men, which in turn leads to more hookups and fewer
> traditional relationships. Here’s the thing: This surplus of women is not
> “perceived” at all but very, very real.

Okay, so according to Mr. Birger, we have we have a surplus of women. He fails
to qualify it here, but later we realize this is true of only a few places
(Manhattan, for example) and not necessarily true in the general case. In
fact, women generally outnumber men in college[1].

> As I note in my book, today’s lopsided gender ratios “add up to sexual
> nirvana for heterosexual men, but for heterosexual women — especially those
> who put a high priority on getting married and having children in wedlock —
> they represent a demographic time bomb.”

I don't really get this. It smells of thinly veiled anti-male sentiment
("sexual nirvana for heterosexual men") -- as if women don't enjoy casual sex?
It also seems that Birger doesn't think relationship goals are discussed by
both parties. Men aren't the only ones that "decide" where a relationship
heads -- Vanity Fair disagrees, but I frankly think that's complete nonsense
and does a disservice to young women. Furthermore, women aren't indentured --
they can leave an unfavorable relationship at any time. Specifically, the
Vanity Fair article was referring to _hookup culture_. Presumably, if you want
a long term relationship (and put a "high priority on getting married and
having children in wedlock"), you won't meet someone on Tinder Friday and have
sex with them on Saturday. Even a dating neophyte can tell you that much.

> Regardless of orientation, obviously not all women place a premium on
> marriage, or even monogamy. But for the straight, college-educated woman who
> is eager to get married and start a family, the question becomes how best to
> deal with a dating market in which men have too much leverage.

Again, the Vanity Fair article specifically dealt with _Tinder_. You put a
high premium on long term relationships and wedlock? Don't use Tinder. There's
OKCupid, Match.com, eHarmony, and PoF; most of these are aimed towards
relationship-building and not necessarily thrill-seeking. Tinder is primarily
a hookup app. Kind of how the Silk Road was mainly used for buying and selling
drugs. Sure, there are edge cases, but it's important to see the salient point
here.

> Unsurprisingly, men tend to be less — I’ll say it — promiscuous when women
> are more scarce.

This is a (stupid, and again, thinly-veiled anti-male) truism. Female scarcity
by definition implies less male sex going on. Mr. Birger managed to say
absolutely nothing while at the same time making it Tweet-worthy.

But really the article fails at a much more basic level. Some people are
looking for relationships while others are looking for hook-ups. Without
quantifying these two segments (and the cross-pollination between these
groups), Birger's claims are meaningless. At least the Vanity Fair article
didn't particularly try to make any sweeping generalization and was somewhat
of a showpiece: an excellently written, wonderfully researched, and fun to
read collection of interviews. Birger's, on the other hand, makes claims it
can't possibly prove and reduces some of the most complex human social
interaction to "leverage" and "priorities". I think he took the Vanity Fair
article a bit too seriously.

Finally, the entire Birger article makes a huge assumption: that most women
are interested in a "boyfriend" rather than a hookup. Without the data to back
this assumption up, we're stuck in the middle of nowhere.

[1]
[http://www.nber.org/digest/jan07/w12139.html](http://www.nber.org/digest/jan07/w12139.html)

