Hey Dr Sue — Why Do Girls Never Make The First Move? … Even On Tinder?

I feel like I need to start by saying this isn’t true for all women. I know lots of women who make the first move, and I know lots of men who love that.

But I also know women who won’t make the first move and some men who hate it when women do. A lot of this comes back to what people are taught about what’s “appropriate” for their gender.

While there’s definitely been a change in expected gender roles and what’s “appropriate” for men and women since I was a kid, traditionally in male/female relationships the power dynamic has often been based off men being aggressive and the women being more submissive.

This begins with the very first romantic interaction. For some women, they were taught that making the first move was wrong. That they were supposed to always wait for the guy to initiate conversation.

I get that part of the role of one’s culture is to give people expectations, and also boundaries. With that said, I want to point out two issues I have with the idea of women waiting for men to make the first move.

The first is that while we often teach women that waiting for the man to initiate is appropriate, we don’t always tell them the why behind it, other than to tell them that this is what women are “supposed” to do. We…