If the advice had been "Boys: lower your standards, girls: pay a photographer" I wonder if you'd have said "guys just get to be dawgs, women have to spend money to beautify themselves".
I very much might have. Everyone brings their own bias to the table.
But, remember the asymmetry in this space is large. The asymmetry of risk, of expectations, of outcome. It doesn't go to what you project as a hypothetical, it goes to the one I responded to. If you can show me a dating app with the right dynamics to demand the response you hypothesized, we can see how the numbers pan out. The one we have, it's the other direction of bias in expectation and behaviour.
Ask yourself why the asymmetry in hinge/bumble about who initiates contact exist.
With no intent of doxxing your bio page here says you're a social scientist. I'd welcome an understanding of if the current praxis in your field suggests the kind of cultural bias I projected isn't widespread, and if your field views this as "anti men" because I certainly didn't mean it to be, I simply think there is an inherent asymmetry to who has to act, and how they act, in the recommendations from this author in this space, which appears backed by data.
My view is it's mostly human nature not cultural bias. Sex differences in mating are cross-cultural (Donald Buss has done a lot on this). Whether either side can be said to be "disadvantaged" is a bit of a hard one. Compared to what hypothetical, and what's the measure of disadvantage? Having to hire a photographer seems like a bigger disadvantage than just lowering your standards: it costs money.
> Having to hire a photographer seems like a bigger disadvantage than just lowering your standards: it costs money.
The opportunity cost of entering a relationship with someone lower in your ranking system is to forego a relationship with someone higher in that system down the line. It makes sense to err on the side of picky if there's a tangible 'gain' to it, purely strategically speaking.
Yes, I also thought that. But once you've hooked your fish, the investment paid off. It feels like money trumps all other cost/benefit choices because it has strict numerics and orders linearly. "Lower your expectations $4.99" doesn't compute. "Take this temu boyfriend, the Amazon boyfriend is out of stock"
