Hey everybody quick public service announcement, today is my birthday which means I should
be uh, looking a little more like this. Happy birthday to me!
So last we left off on Ask Cristen I had solicited your suggestions for alternate names for female
humans aside from chicks and the very formal woman. Sounds a little cold. Nabile adoui
says, 'I think calling a woman by "girl" is preferable because it's like saying "you look
young", which is very important for her.' This is me taking my copy of 'The Feminine
Mystique' and bashing my head against it. Razzlefrog suggested, 'Women, compadres, pals.'
Hey, compadre. Me gusto mucho. Vampirate Yuki suggests, 'Women, females and ladies. That's
all I got.' It's almost all that I've got too. So guys if you are ever at a loss as
to what to call a woman, well we've got names and apparently comrades is alright. Sounds
so communist. But that could work, depending on your audience. Moving on to more important
business which is the response to the advice I gave to Alyssa who was having some trouble.
All these guys seem to be paying attention to her and yet she wasn't getting asked out.
A number of you said that I was missing one huge thing that she could do. Just ask a guy
out. Pies Letrados said, 'Why don't guys ask you out? Ask them out if you are interested.'
Kelli Miller was not happy with me. 'Could you please treat women like they have agency?'
I agree with you fully that we don't need to perpetuate all of these old, heteronormative
dating scripts. I was telling her to maybe take some of that energy away from wanting
to sit around and wait for a guy to ask her out and get to know herself, which I think
is quite empowering. TheLonelyImmortal said, 'If you're attracted to men but not being
asked out, take the initiative.' I might have gone ahead and advised that if she had had
her sights set on one specific guy but her question was more general. I feel like so
often the measure of our worth especially if we are women and especially when we're
younger is in the number of guys who want to come up and ask us out, whether or not
we are pretty enough to attract a bunch of guys. Why else do you think that there are
almost 300,000 videos on YouTube featuring mostly girls who are 14 and 15 years old asking
the internet whether or not they're pretty? If I could go back and tell my 17 year old
self anything, it would be to chill out on worrying so much about how I look to men in
particular and pay more attention to who I am on the inside because guess what today
is my birthday. I am turning 29 years old. It's only beginning to dawn on me what my
self-worth truly is. It's not this. So to that question though of well couldn't Alyssa
just ask out guys. Absolutely I fully support women violating the heteronormative dating
scripts. let me point you to a meta-analysis of 143 studies examining how often men were
asked out by women, vice versa. The studies took place from January 1978 to December 2010.
This study did find that the overwhelming preference in this heteronormative construct
is for the men to approach the women. But the good news is, especially for women of
my generation and younger those mindsets about who should be doing the pursuing, who can
be the aggressor in dating is changing. We're not there yet though. Because you know what?
A lot of times, women who are a little more tenacious, aggressive, determined tend to
be judged unfavorably by both men and women alike. We all need to change our collective
mindsets about what is and is not appropriate for women not just in dating but in general
behavior. And I have a feeling that I am totally stirring the comment pot right now but you
know what? I don't mind because it's my birthday. Guys have you been asked out by women before
and did you like it? Did it go well? And women have you asked guys out? How did you do it?
Let me know in the comments below and for all of you who have wished me happy birthday
I do appreciate it very much it has been a lovely day and now I'm going to go and eat
some birthday macaroni and cheese. See you next week.