# Why isn't "Sadie Hawkins" feminism a thing? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 22, 2018, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221 "2018-01-22T16:39:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/61 "2018-01-25T22:01:28Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > As \*\*Jim \*\*stated, apparently I have to already know the girl in order to ask her to go to Starbucks. Because why would you want to talk with a complete stranger you just passed by on the street? Just because she Looks hot? (That’s why she wouldn’t like it!) But you have friends, or fellow students, or colleagues, or Sport Club members - they will introduce you “hey that’s my sister/ Cousin/…” and you know already a Little bit. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/62 "2018-01-25T22:14:49Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Because why would you want to talk with a complete stranger you just passed by on the street? Just because she Looks hot? (That’s why she wouldn’t like it!) Consider four different circumstances: 1. I’m sitting in an airport, and I notice a woman next to me reading **Left Hand of Darkness** , a book you might guess that I like. I tell her how much I love the book and ask her if she reads a lot of science fiction. My ulterior motive is that I find her attractive (both because she’s hot and because she’s reading Le Guin), and I’m hoping I can strike up a conversation with her. If she’s noncommittal–that is, if she doesn’t close the book and look up with a bright smile and hold up her end of the conversation–I back off. 2. I’m at a bar, and I notice a cute woman drinking alone, idly checking her phone between looking around the bar. I sit next to her and strike up a conversation using some bland bit: “Come here often?” or the likes. (Note that I’m lousy at flirting so can’t really come up with good examples). 3. I’m at a bar, and I see a woman out with a friend, laughing and checking out guys. I think I got checked out, so I go over and ask to buy her a drink. 4. I’m walking down the street, and I see a woman dressed in full goth regalia. She’s super cute, and I’m also in full goth regalia and think I look pretty spiffy, and I saw her give me an approving once-over just like I gave her, so I dodge back and ask her if she wants to meet me at Scandals this Friday at their goth night. Personally I don’t see any of these interactions as socially unacceptable. Are you saying one or more of them would be? But there’s a different one for each: 1b) The woman reading Le Guin? I’ve never read her, so I ask the woman to tell me about Le Guin, and when she’s noncommittal, I keep pestering her, and if she blows me off, I lecture her about being friendly. 2b) The woman at the bar with her phone? I sit down and make a lewd comment to try to open the conversation; or I sit down and bother her even though she keeps checking her phone. 3b) The woman at the bar with her friends? Similar to 2b: I keep bothering her even after she keeps turning back to her friend, or ignoring me. 4b) The goth? I’m not goth, and she didn’t check me out, and I decide to strike up a conversation; or when she says No to Scandals, I keep asking her different ways out on a date. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2018, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/63 "2018-01-25T22:26:54Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Consider four different circumstances: > > 1. I’m sitting in an airport, and I notice a woman next to me reading **Left Hand of Darkness** , a book you might guess that I like. I tell her how much I love the book and ask her if she reads a lot of science fiction. My ulterior motive is that I find her attractive (both because she’s hot and because she’s reading Le Guin), and I’m hoping I can strike up a conversation with her. If she’s noncommittal–that is, if she doesn’t close the book and look up with a bright smile and hold up her end of the conversation–I back off. Reading a book is usually the sign “Leave me alone, I don’t want to interact”. Or, if it’s a good book, don’t Interrupt me, it’s so page-turning at the Moment! But you already know something more about her than her Looks. I would accept it if she puts the book away, and you ask her. I would also have no Problem if you don’t know LeGuin, but ask her only once, and then back off. > [@](#): > > 1. I’m at a bar, and I notice a cute woman drinking alone, idly checking her phone between looking around the bar. I sit next to her and strike up a conversation using some bland bit: “Come here often?” or the likes. (Note that I’m lousy at flirting so can’t really come up with good examples). I would find that a bother. (Of course I’m not speaking for all women, or even all german women.) Maybe she just moved into town and doesn’t know anybody yet, and is glad to meet somebody. There’s also a regional difference - People from the Rhine Region Chat your ear off at the drop of a hat, especially if you talk about Soccer; Bavarians are more taciturn. > [@](#): > > 1. I’m at a bar, and I see a woman out with a friend, laughing and checking out guys. I think I got checked out, so I go over and ask to buy her a drink. That, I would really dislike, because men seem to intrpret everything as sign of interest. And buying a drink - no. Are you trying to make me drunk? Do you think I don’t have enough Money to pay my own drink? (Back in the 1950s, men were breadwinners and paid for everything, regardless of reality. But today women have their own Money and don’t want to feel obligated). > [@](#): > > 1. I’m walking down the street, and I see a woman dressed in full goth regalia. She’s super cute, and I’m also in full goth regalia and think I look pretty spiffy, and I saw her give me an approving once-over just like I gave her, so I dodge back and ask her if she wants to meet me at Scandals this Friday at their goth night. Depends. Again, I don’t like the assumption she was giving you an approving once-over, or that you look spiffy, and she Looks hot. But if the City is small, so the goth Scene is small, and you want to tell her that there is a goth night, because you’ve never seen her there, so maybe she doesn’T know it… yeah, maybe. > [@](#): > > Personally I don’t see any of these interactions as socially unacceptable. Are you saying one or more of them would be? Different cultural norms, and different personal expectations. No doubt you can find women who would like all Scenarios. And no doubt you can find (lots) of men who think they acted like above, when they really acted like below (b) - that is, not backing off after first attempt fell flat, or mistaking a normal look as checking-out. > [@](#): > > But there’s a different one for each: > 1b) The woman reading Le Guin? I’ve never read her, so I ask the woman to tell me about Le Guin, and when she’s noncommittal, I keep pestering her, and if she blows me off, I lecture her about being friendly. > 2b) The woman at the bar with her phone? I sit down and make a lewd comment to try to open the conversation; or I sit down and bother her even though she keeps checking her phone. > 3b) The woman at the bar with her friends? Similar to 2b: I keep bothering her even after she keeps turning back to her friend, or ignoring me. > 4b) The goth? I’m not goth, and she didn’t check me out, and I decide to strike up a conversation; or when she says No to Scandals, I keep asking her different ways out on a date. Those are all unacceptable regardless of the Situation because you [hypothetical you, not real you] don’t back off. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/64 "2018-01-26T01:17:34Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Depends on the circumstance. You went to a rock concert / poetry reading and noticed a Girl sitting there. After the Event, you ask her “Want to discuss the band/ Poem in the coffeehouse next street?” - okay. But this is hitting on a girl at a poetry reading. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/65 "2018-01-26T01:44:11Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Different cultural norms, and different personal expectations. No doubt you can find women who would like all Scenarios. Well, but that’s the point. There are going to be extremes on either ends: some people want to engage in the (b) behaviors, others don’t want to make eye contact with a stranger ever. In the middle, we muddle along. You wouldn’t like to be approached about a book; someone else loves talking with strangers about books in common and would be delighted. As long as the person pays attention and backs off when they realize you’re not interested in the conversation, it’s fair enough for them to check and find out. (FWIW I’m way too introverted to engage in any of those conversations, and am also unlikely to respond positively to someone asking about my book. My dad, on the other hand, is a master of meeting strangers and making fast friends with them; I watch him strike up conversations with total strangers and bond, and am astonished at his superpower.) ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/66 "2018-01-26T02:20:39Z")
> [@CarnalK](#): > > As far as human interaction goes, that’s a game theory problem not math, imho. I doubt it ends up with “maximal happiness” for initiators in real life. Unless you think every man out there is in the best relationship he could hope for. Game Theory is a subset of Math. Potato, po tah toe. Actually yes, I **am** saying that every man ends up in the best relationship he could hope for (for certain values of “hope”). If you exclude crazy ideas like “Gee I wish I was married to Halle Berry; too bad we’ve never met” or even “I really miss my old girlfriend; too bad she dumped me for someone else.”, then what’s left is that a man can only hope for a woman who says yes to him and doesn’t dump him. Of all the women who fit this description, which one will he ask first? The one he likes the best. And, by definition, she will say yes, and she won’t leave him. Given a finite population of men and women, there are finitely many ways they can be paired up. Some of these are stable and some are not. A matching is unstable if it contains at least one man and one woman who prefer each other instead of their actual spouses. The classical solution to the [SMP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem), proposed in 1962, is that each man proposes to the one woman that he prefers most and she either says yes or no. If she says no, he moves on to his second favorite, et cetera, until he finds a woman who says yes. Gale and Shapley showed that this strategy leads to a stable matching where there aren’t any pairs where both of them wish they had married other people. Of all the possible “stable” arrangements, the classic strategy leads to the arrangement that maximizes happiness for the men. Meanwhile, it minimizes happiness for the women. Again, I’m not saying their happiness goes to zero, or that the men’s happiness goes to 100%. I’m saying minimized and maximized within the bounds of all possible stable arrangements, excluding the unstable arrangements. I will grant that there’s at least one way the SMP differs from the real world is that new people are always being added in and old ones taken out, while the model assumes that no one enters or exits the simulation in the middle. But I’m not convinced that this difference alone is enough to overcome the strong preference for the askers to get their optimal choice while the answerers don’t. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/67 "2018-01-26T02:36:31Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > that each man proposes to the one woman that he prefers most and she either says yes or no. If she says no, he moves on to his second favorite, et cetera, until he finds a woman who says yes. Gale and Shapley showed that this strategy leads to a stable matching where there aren’t any pairs where both of them wish they had married other people How can this be? The guy would constantly be wishing he had married his first favorite. And the woman would constantly be wishing she had married her first favorite. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/68 "2018-01-26T03:15:18Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > How can this be? The guy would constantly be wishing he had married his first favorite. Yes, but that woman has already rejected him. He winds up with the best woman (according to his subjective ranking of “best”) who will have him. > [@sbunny8](#): > > Game Theory is a subset of Math. Potato, po tah toe. > > Actually yes, I **am** saying that every man ends up in the best relationship he could hope for (for certain values of “hope”). If you exclude crazy ideas like “Gee I wish I was married to Halle Berry; too bad we’ve never met” or even “I really miss my old girlfriend; too bad she dumped me for someone else.”, then what’s left is that a man can only hope for a woman who says yes to him and doesn’t dump him. Of all the women who fit this description, which one will he ask first? The one he likes the best. And, by definition, she will say yes, and she won’t leave him. > > Given a finite population of men and women, there are finitely many ways they can be paired up. Some of these are stable and some are not. A matching is unstable if it contains at least one man and one woman who prefer each other instead of their actual spouses. The classical solution to the [SMP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stable_marriage_problem), proposed in 1962, is that each man proposes to the one woman that he prefers most and she either says yes or no. If she says no, he moves on to his second favorite, et cetera, until he finds a woman who says yes. Gale and Shapley showed that this strategy leads to a stable matching where there aren’t any pairs where both of them wish they had married other people. Of all the possible “stable” arrangements, the classic strategy leads to the arrangement that maximizes happiness for the men. Meanwhile, it minimizes happiness for the women. Again, I’m not saying their happiness goes to zero, or that the men’s happiness goes to 100%. I’m saying minimized and maximized within the bounds of all possible stable arrangements, excluding the unstable arrangements. Yeah, but a game theory analysis of the situation only gives you a game theory answer. The act of asking someone out is not without some emotional consequence. An algorithm that requires asking every woman until one says ‘yes’ means putting up with, even expecting, rejection on a regular basis. That’s a lot of misery to go through in the name of happiness. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/69 "2018-01-26T03:17:28Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Yes, but that woman has already rejected him. He winds up with the best woman (according to his subjective ranking of “best”) who will have him. Maybe, but that doesn’t mean he is not wishing he married his first choice. ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/70 "2018-01-26T03:57:11Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > Maybe, but that doesn’t mean he is not wishing he married his first choice. For purposes of the SMP, they defined “stable” to mean there aren’t any pairs A+B and C+D where B and C both prefer each other instead of A or D, that is B prefers C over A and simultaneously C prefers B over D. Sure, there can be plenty of cases where B would like to dump A and have C instead but C doesn’t feel the same way about B. That’s “stable”, because B would be an idiot to dump A and go after C when C would rather stay with D. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/71 "2018-01-26T17:08:53Z")
> [@Slash1972](#): > > As \*\*Jim \*\*stated, apparently I have to already know the girl in order to ask her to go to Starbucks. > > I don’t remember it being like that in the early 90s. Has it changed that much? You meet them because you are introduced. You share friends. You are classmates. You go to the same church or the same bridge club (I don’t know, do Germans play bridge?) Maybe someone sets you up by inviting both of you out to the pub on the same night - along with them. Its like people think that humanity will end and we wouldn’t be able to reproduce if we did this, but in truth, this is how it worked for a very long time - and apparently still works in Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Slash1972](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slash1972/32/6461_2.png) [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2018, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/72 "2018-01-26T17:17:15Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > Its like people think that humanity will end and we wouldn’t be able to reproduce if we did this, but in truth, this is how it worked for a very long time - and apparently still works in Germany. This seems to greatly overstate the questions that people are having in this thread. Especially since now it has been stated that asking a strange girl that you met at a poetry reading to go get a coffee is allowed even though previous statements implied that it wasn’t allowed. ---
**Author:** ![TheMightyFro](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themightyfro/32/20081_2.png) [@TheMightyFro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheMightyFro)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/73 "2018-01-29T12:54:10Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > In my culture, it’s no longer acceptable for men to hit on women As an almost 40-something American of Swedish extraction, I have felt this way my entire life. I cringe at men hitting on women IRL. I think it’s from the delusion it takes to be convinced that some unknown female has interest in them. It doesn’t come off as confidence to me, more like an inability to interpret social and physical ques. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_Peebles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Jim\_Peebles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_Peebles)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/74 "2018-01-29T14:04:09Z")
> [@TheMightyFro](#): > > As an almost 40-something American of Swedish extraction, I have felt this way my entire life. I cringe at men hitting on women IRL. I think it’s from the delusion it takes to be convinced that some unknown female has interest in them. It doesn’t come off as confidence to me, more like an inability to interpret social and physical ques. I find it interesting that the two posters who seem to look most negatively upon a man appproaching a woman he doesn’t know are of German and Swedish background. Those countries are known for declining birthrates: [https://www.rand.org/pubs/research\_briefs/RB9126/index1.html](https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9126/index1.html) (at least among their native population). Is this tied to their cultures expecting the men to wait more and more until they are sure it is OK to ask the woman on a date? Or just a coincidence? Or some of these assumptions are wrong? ---
**Author:** ![sbunny8](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@sbunny8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sbunny8)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/75 "2018-01-29T18:19:37Z")
> [@Jim\_Peebles](#): > > I find it interesting that the two posters who seem to look most negatively upon a man appproaching a woman he doesn’t know are of German and Swedish background. Those countries are known for declining birthrates: > [Population Implosion? Low Fertility and Policy Responses in the European Union | RAND](https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9126/index1.html) > (at least among their native population). Is this tied to their cultures expecting the men to wait more and more until they are sure it is OK to ask the woman on a date? Or just a coincidence? Or some of these assumptions are wrong? It’s seems to me that’s a big leap from inappropriate sexual advances to birth rates. I mean, it’s plausible that the number of sexual advances might be connected to the amount of anonymous sex and/or One-Night Stands, but you’d still have to connect from there to higher or lower pregnancy rates and from there to higher or lower rates of abortions vs live births. My WAG is that the vast majority of live births in those countries are with women who are in committed long term relationships and increasing or decreasing the number of ONSs would have little effect on that. I would further hypothesize that ONSs are more motivated to use birth control and would be less motivated to carry an unwanted pregnancy to birth. Hypothetically, if your goal was to increase live births, I suspect that encouraging bolder sexual advances between strangers would be counterproductive. Unless it were a country where birth control was expensive and abortions illegal, which doesn’t describe Germany or Sweden at all. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_Peebles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Jim\_Peebles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_Peebles)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2018, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/76 "2018-01-29T18:23:30Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > It’s seems to me that’s a big leap from inappropriate sexual advances to birth rates. I mean, it’s plausible that the number of sexual advances might be connected to the amount of anonymous sex and/or One-Night Stands, but you’d still have to connect from there to higher or lower pregnancy rates and from there to higher or lower rates of abortions vs live births. My WAG is that the vast majority of live births in those countries are with women who are in committed long term relationships and increasing or decreasing the number of ONSs would have little effect on that. I would further hypothesize that ONSs are more motivated to use birth control and would be less motivated to carry an unwanted pregnancy to birth. Hypothetically, if your goal was to increase live births, I suspect that encouraging bolder sexual advances between strangers would be counterproductive. > > Unless it were a country where birth control was expensive and abortions illegal, which doesn’t describe Germany or Sweden at all. We are assuming he is asking her out on a date. We are NOT assuming he is asking her to have sex with him. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2018, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/77 "2018-01-30T14:35:30Z")
> [@brainstall](#): > > So no man has ever hit on a woman wearing a wedding ring? If ever there was a universally understood signal of female unavailability, that would have to be it. There are guys who see it as the perfect target marker. They reckon that a married woman is less likely to get clingy, and if she gets pregnant she won’t sue for paternity. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2018, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221/78 "2018-01-30T14:44:05Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Hitting on = making an unwanted (often crass) advance towards a stranger > > I thought that was the AE usage? I agree with LHoD, it doesn’t imply “unwanted” or “crass”. It’s making one’s interest known and can involve both verbal and non-verbal means. It can involve a light, purposeful touch (placing your hand on the other person’s forearm for example); it can be asking someone you’ve known for months at a common hobby to join you for a movie; it can mean seeing someone attractive at a concert, saying “hi” and asking “is it ok if I join you?” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-isnt-sadie-hawkins-feminism-a-thing/807221.md?page=3)