在美国文化中， 主动开始一段恋爱关系一直以来是男方的责任。男性理应主动向女性邀约，爱情开花结果之时，也应当由男方提出求婚。相反地，人们认为女人应该矜持地等待男方 采取主动，顶多只能对她们心仪的对象提出小小的暗示。如果一个女人胆敢藐视这种惯例，主动追求男性，就会被冠以冒失或放荡的罪名。随着性别平等在美国社会 越来越受关注，这种惯例逐渐被淡化。今天，女性主动向男性提出约会的邀请已经是完全被接受的事实。然而，这种惯例的遗风依旧停留在当代的恋爱文化中，误导 了女性对恋爱的期望。In American culture, the burden of initiating romantic relations has traditionally been the sole responsibility of men. Men were expected to ask women out on dates and ultimately, be the ones to propose marriage. Women, in turn, were expected to demurely wait for men to make the first move and do no more than covertly hint that they were romantically interested in anyone. If a woman dared defy this convention by initiating romance herself, she was considered to be “forward” or “fast”. As gender equality has become an increasingly important concern in American society, this convention has gradually eroded. Today, it's considered perfectly acceptable for a woman to ask a man out. Nonetheless, remnants of the convention linger in contemporary dating culture and often shape women's expectations.
Many people consider women asking men out to be a sign of greater gender equality; the social stigma attached to women being assertive and initiating romance has dissipated. Despite this fact, however, some women prefer the old dating convention and seem reluctant to actually make the first move. Part of this is merely trepidation. Asking someone out entails running the risk of rejection and embarrassment, so many women are content to abide by the old convention that required men assume all the risk. Women may get frustrated if the men they're attracted to don't ask them out, but they can at least wait in safety. For some women, being asked out is also more romantic than doing the asking themselves. Many depictions of romance in popular culture-- whether it be in romantic comedies, books, or magazines-- center around the idea of men pursuing women, not vice versa. To a certain extent, these depictions shape women's perception of romance. In an online forum about modern dating relations, one participant noted that “romance and passion are essential to relationships” and that “personally [she] [doesn't] think it's romantic to ask a guy out.”
Although many women prefer the dating convention of the past, their unwillingness to ask men out is by no means universal. There are plenty of women who enjoy the greater fluidity in modern dating culture and take a proactive approach to dating. In the same forum that one woman stated that asking a guy out is not romantic, another encouraged her fellow women to “break tradition” and stated that both men and women should ask the person they like out because “the only way you get what you want is to ask”. The traditional dating convention clearly does not have the same hold over society that it once did, but that does not mean its influence has entirely vanished.
讨论：你认为女性应该在恋爱中采取主动吗？ (Discussion Question: Do you think women should initiate romance?)
Sources:
Cullen, Emma. "No, Make Guys Work." Should Girls Ask Guys Out? The Chicago Tribune, 21 Jan. 2010.
Web. 11 Aug. 2011. <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-01-21/news/
1001220440_1_guy-equality-girls>.
Image:
By JGKlein (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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