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I quite like Scott's analogy of dating dynamics and being a well-dressed white tourist in Varanasi, India. In this parable, "street beggars" (males) and "tourists" (females) both have unflattering but mostly accurate insights into the psychology of the other. Game theory determines the shape of their interactions, more than the pre-existing personality of both parties. Any street beggar who is too reticent or tourist who is too open handed is sabotaging themselves. (The one flaw in the analogy is of course that our "tourist" is actually looking for a particular "street beggar", and the tourist:beggar ratio is more balanced, but I quibble.)
It's a failure of rationality, though, to be unwilling to concede that negative generalizations of both sides do, in fact, have a basis in reality. This goes for both the beggars and the tourists.
I believe generalizations about gender are useless, as outliers in other cultures prove that the behaviors are arbitrary. Personally, I've also found that every single person I know in real life who follows strict beliefs in gender roles is either in an unequal, aggressive and unhappy marriage/relationship, or is single/divorced. I would personally hate to look at my partner as someone who wants to lie and cheat me out like a street beggar in Varansai, India.
Do you believe the generalisation that men are stronger and larger than women to be useless, and outliers prove them arbitrary?
Do you believe there are no innate social/psychological differences between men and women, and it's all just socially/culturally contingent?
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Not a flaw at all. The fated street beggar is actually a guru who will give you Enlightenment, and not so long ago spiritually famished Brits went on entire crusades to India in search of The One, much like overworked middle-aged Western women go to Jamaica in hopes that some beach boy will give them true Rasta love.
The dirty secret of course is that all gurus are more or less street beggars.
(Successful gurus move to the West and build a sex cult with a personal harem within their school, naturally).
The ratio is just a bit more hypergamous than in normal heterosexual relations, but the market provides. India is a big place.
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