Ladies first?

Ladies get in free!\nLogically it seems wrong for me, a "lady" by society's definition, to question such an offer -- usually promoted by sports bars or any other location that aims to capitalize on women's sexuality. It's easy on my wallet, after all.\nBut free admission, ladies, has a higher price than the $3 cover charge that is waived.\nPubs, concerts and even parties that offer women free admission are doing so to enhance their capital. That is, having beautiful women -- or lots of women in general -- around is a mark of their success. The women are their possessions, to be had by the men who pay their way in. \nSounds like a strip club, but it's really just almost any run-of-the-mill sports bar. \nBut this one marketing scheme speaks to a larger cultural issue I have with gender norms in the United States: that heterosexuality is dangerously empowering for men. \nLet me preface this daunting feminist argument with the fact that I do identify as heterosexual. I heart men! What I don't heart are conventional heterosexual dating rituals that are fundamentally oppressive.\nSome of my female peers express vague resentment when a date doesn't hold open doors or pay for their meals or movie admission or other ultimately conventional (and boring) date activities.\nThere isn't anything inherently bad about being disappointed in a male's lack of "mannerly" behavior -- except that I wonder if my peers understand where ideas about dating and romance stem from.\nNo? I'm happy to share. Modern ideas about romantic love stem largely from the Victorian Era when women were essentially brainwashed by ideas that a man's love will ensure them eternal happiness, so as to limit women's curiosity and maintain their ever-honored "purity" as beacons of morality. \nGross!\nSo, today, when a man buys a woman dinner on a first date and she lets him, probably with the intentions merely of being polite and traditional, the couple is actually perpetuating unfortunate ideas (for men and women) about relationships and gender roles within them. The primary idea here is, of course, that a woman must rely on "her man" for money. The thing is, it used to be that women had no choice but to do this.\nBut also, from a modern viewpoint, how unfair for men it is to be expected to provide food for their date. \nA heterosexual couple must have complete respect for one another as equal individuals. Can that really happen in this sort of dating scenario?\nProbably not. And this is essentially why I encourage abandoning conventional heterosexual dating methods. \nMy words might have potential of portraying me as some crazy or ungrateful subversive feminist, who is ardent about keeping her legs unshaved and hates soccer moms.\nBut I'm really not at all.\nAll I'm doing is thinking outside of the constraining gender box. \nNow go buy your own dinner, and read a book.