Yes, women are expected* to be nonconfrontational, and are often punished socially and professionally for being too direct.
*Raised, trained, . . .? Not sure I have the right word here.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I would ask a second time for a first date simply to eliminate the possibility that I picked the wrong date by chance.
“Are you free Saturday?”
“No”
“I apologize for bothering you. You will never hear from me again. Bye.”
“…What just happened?”
And of course none of this has anything to do with choosing to go on a second date or not, unless you’re talking about ghosting her after one date because you happened to propose the second one on a day she was busy.
Apropos of nothing: I really enjoy it when the posts people write shine a little extra light on their screen names 
There’s probably some truth to the old stereotype, but it doesn’t explain all of it, which is why I made the point of observing that “this includes interactions with other women”.
Right. The right word might just be “prefer”.
Yep. And got trained well in high school where saying no to the wrong guy could turn you into the school slut via gossip. And retrained when we got “fucking bitch” or when the guy we rejected thinks its “funny” to follow us out to our car. And that’s the social, the professional tightrope walking is a whole different thing.
Perhaps it’s not true anymore, but when I was young there were a lot of women in my area who were taught to ‘play hard to get’. I think the idea was to filter out the men looking for a quick lay. “If he’s really serious about you and wasn’t just horny, he will ask you again.” Plus, I think there was a notion that if a guy had to really work for your affection, he would appreciate you more. Finally, mothers may have taught that to their daughters just to keep them from casual sex.
I can remember hearing adults talking about how hard their men had to chase them before they finally relented, like it was all a big game. “I was going out with another guy, but Tom just kept trying. I’d get flowers, he’d show up after class to walk me home, and just wouldn’t take no for an answer! Finally, when the other guy turned out to be a dud I relented and went out on a date with Tom, and the rest is history. It was so romantic!”
This kind of thing was so common it was a movie trope. But I’m guessing that if she had married the other guy, Tom would have been remembered as a stalker who wouldn’t leave her alone.
More than once I asked a girl out and was given a coy no (“I’m sorry, I’m busy that night.” or something similar), and I wouldn’t ask again because I was too shy, only to be approached by a friend of hers somewhat later saying, “Why didn’t you ask her out again? She likes you.”
Maybe it’s all completely different today, but I doubt it. Youthful romance is difficult ad confusing, and culture moves slowly. No should always mean no, but confused young people do not behave consistently on either side of the gender divide.
In addition to what Sam Stone said, all of these mixed/confusing messages that we’re taught by society become all the more dangerous in the MeToo era. Many people are simultaneously tugged and pulled by one faction that’s been taught that playing hard to get and being as subtle as possible is a good and romantic thing to do, and another faction that says that clear clarity and directness is the safest and wisest thing to do. It’s a dangerous blend.
It’s my feeling that the pattern of a coy female and pursuing male is an innate behavior from evolution. That pattern is seen in many animals. It’s common in animals to see many males competing for the attention of a female and the female picks the one she feels is worthy. That makes sense since the female will be carrying and raising the young and she wants to make sure the male she picks for a mate is fully committed. I don’t think it’s something that we learned from the movies. The movies amplify that innate pattern. But obviously humans are much more mentally complex than other animals, so we can change our behavior to override any innate desire. I think it’s something that will always be present and it’s up to a society’s customs to mitigate it.
It’s only “dangerous” in that the old, patriarchal, rape-culture elements remain, to varying degrees with various people. The “new” ways of doing things – to ensure consent – is the right, and safe, way for people to act regarding sexual intimacy.
Still works.
‘Playing hard to get’ really works; here’s why
A team of researchers from the University of Rochester and the Israeli-based Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya examined the effects of playing hard to get, a mating strategy that is likely to instill a certain degree of uncertainty. In a new study, published in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships , they show that making the chase harder increased a potential mate’s desirability.
Findings
- A person who is perceived as hard to get is associated with a greater mate value
- Study participants made greater efforts on/and found more sexually desirable those potential dates they perceived as hard to get
- Study participants made greater efforts to see those again for whom they had made efforts in the first place
Also: Who’s Playing Hard-to-Get, Who’s Attracted to It, and Why
I think most women were taught to be coy by their mothers, not their fathers. Not getting the patriarchy thing. Also, it seems to me that when it comes to dating it’s usually the women who are in a position of power. The ‘playing hard to get’ tactic could also be described as ‘make men jump through hoops if they want to date you.’.
Clearly this doesn’t apply to men who attempt to overpower women physically. But other than that, things like stalking and not taking no for an answer are often perpetrated by women. I’m not sure there’s even a statistical difference between the sexes when it comes to that. Female stalkers are totally a thing. I think it’s just a human thing in some people. Lack of impulse control, insecurity, desire… these occur in both sexes. Men do have more responsibility to control it, because they tend to be physically more powerful and there can be an i timidation factor from that. But female stalkers have lots of tools for intimidating and threatening as well.
Much of this discussion reminds me of the thread on potential employers ghosting applicants. Employers have learned not to give reasons for rejecting applicants, because the response is a set of reasons why the reasons for rejection aren’t valid. Having been there, I understand why women don’t give reasons for turning down men. And employers have a lot more power.
I don’t see the former as negating the latter. i.e.
Mom - Dear daughter mine, it’s a man’s world out there and you have to learn to be careful to live in it safely and successfully.
Young daughter - Hmm. … OK? Sounds weird and stupid.
Mom - Never be direct with a man; you might piss them off and then they’ll injure, rape, or kill you. And get away with it the man’s world.
… a few years later after a bad date …
Same daughter now older & slightly wiser - Yipes, that was close! OK, Mom, now I believe you.
Dad is nowhere to be seen in the dialog, but the message is all about men ruling the world. IOW, the patriarchy.
Of course, sometimes the reasons arent valid.
Some company really really needed me to fix some issues. But my manager called me and said they rejected my background check. Now bueing as I was a retired fed, this seemed unlikely and she REALLY needed me, so she agreed to ask whey- the reason was the background company they hired couldnt verify my past Government employment. Now yes, sometimes getting the feds to cough up a answer is damn hard, but that cheap ass background company just gave it one try, gave up, and failed me.
I was able to prove my bona-fides, I got hired and they got rid of that cheap-ass background company.
Back in the day, you used to mail in a copy of your resume also. We were talking in a MB about resumes. One set of HR people said that if that copy wasnt on the very top quality paper, they’d just shitcan it. Another set said that such paper was pretentious and anything but plain ol’ copy paper would get shit canned. So for trivial reasons like this, someone might not get the job, and the company might suffer too.
So, yeah, sometimes the reason is bogus, and it is in the best interests of both to hire you.
I think our son got lucky with his first (and present) SO. They worked together on a project their freshman year of college, became friends, and the dating just sort of happened. Now she may have a different perspective, but that was our son’s view of what happened. She did tell us that what got her attention was how different he was from the guys she knew in high school (she’s from a small city in upstate NY that is a lot more conservative than where we are). If one of my friends had wanted to date me at that age, they would have needed to say, “I want to date you, dum-dum.”
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But that’s the kind of behavior women worry about from men any time we are bluntly honest with them.
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Even in my single drunken days I knew that wouldn’t work. 
Just to be clear. The dangers are:
(1) Take people at their word when they say no. If we’re talking consent to sexual contact, consent means a clear yes. This results in the “danger” of possibly missing out on a date with someone who is indirect, or missing out on sexual contact with someone who is indirect.
(2) Use your own judgment about whether the person means “no” or not. Count on reading “signals” in the case of sexual contact. This results in the danger of misreading the other person and being a creep/stalker/committing sexual assault.
Which danger is it that you are concerned about?
In addition, following (1) has the added benefit of reinforcing for everyone that you should say what you mean, which is a net benefit. If a woman is playing a game by saying no when she really wants you to ask again, that tactic will backfire – and change if it backfires enough – if you take her at her word. And, as others have mentioned, do you really want to date a game-player who expects you to read their mind or jump through hoops?
Women typically enforce things like FGM as well. Being caused by patriarchy doesn’t mean a man did. Women have always participated in patriarchal systems, they just have a lower status.
And patriarchy is often bad for the men in the system as well. It doesn’t mean a specific man or men dominating a specific woman or women. It is a system that priorities and empowers some men at the expense of most women. Some women are actually empowered by the patriarchy, but at the expense of other women. Look at Phyllis Schlafly. Had a long successful career attempting to prevent other women from having successful careers.
https://www.history.com/news/equal-rights-amendment-failure-phyllis-schlafly
Thank you for your perspective.
I very much doubt that. Women are most definitely trained from early childhood not to confront other people, and often trained specifically not to confront men. And no, it’s not only by their mothers; though when the mothers are doing so, it’s often not because of preference, but because they’ve run into – or been run over by – men who took direct confrontation from women very badly.
Never been around a female cat in heat, have you?
There are lots of other counterexamples.