Bumble Swipes Left on Match Group/Tinder Allegations
thebeehive.bumble.com
thebeehive.bumble.com
Also, I could have done without the sexist implication that bullying is a masculine characteristic.
Interestingly, all of my female friends who use Bumble are actually annoyed that they must act first to open the dialog with their matches. They don't seem to notice or care that the feature is placed there to empower women, nor do they know or care about Bumble's feminist origins. They use it because it has more attractive males than Tinder.
Gender has everything to do with it, because gender is a cultural mode of expression (and it is most certainly not a tribe you have to defend, so just calm down, guys). On many many dating apps, that expression is extremely lopsided, especially in terms of abusive and otherwise unethical behavior toward other people - namely women. I'm personally much more likely to look into this platform now that I know that they take a principled stance.
(Edit: typo)
Gender politic us good pr, and a brilliant response to their received attacks.
Hope they kick ass, but this isn't about gender, that's consequential.
At least thats like my opinion man
For example you characterize Tinder's mode of conduct as "masculine posturing". Inherent in that comment is the supposition that there is something toxic about masculinity itself.
Imagine if someone called Bumble's letter "feminine posturing". Irrespective of the content of the letter, could you ever perceive the use of that term as anything but ignorant and misogynistic?
You also claim there is a "gendered power structure", and imply that Tinder is part of it, which is a very serious and broad allegation, that's made without supporting evidence, which is irresponsible.
You claim that "gender is a cultural mode of expression (and it is most certainly not a tribe you have to defend, so just calm down, guys)", but the letter says Bumble is proud to be women-run.
It's not necessarily bad to embrace femininity and celebrate a company being run by women, but be upfront about it, and don't gas light anyone who recognizes it as a form of tribalism.
Instead of trying to cast women as victims, and men as victimizers, I think we should step back from identarianism and recognize that members of both genders are disproportionately afflicted with their own set of maladies (e.g. 92% of workplace fatalities afflict men) and that it would be more constructive to put aside this 'which gender is a greater victim' competition and focus on empowering all individuals irrespective of gender.
Men, when facing a challenge, will avoid complaining, buckle down and try to power through the obstacle. Women, on the other hand, will play the victim card instead of using brute force, and will rely on their cunning to accomplish the same business goal. Both strategies are likely very effective.
I wonder if, as we have more majority-women and women-led organizations, we will see more of these indirect tactics deployed by those organizations. More covert corporate warfare than what we're traditionally used to. Nothing wrong with it per se, but just a shift in tactics people might have not foreseen.
With respect to testosterone, the much higher levels found in men drive them to be far more likely to make sacrifices and take risks to achieve more ambitious goals, which manifests in everything from higher numbers of Nobel prize winners, to a life expectancy that is on average 5 years lower than that of women, to a much a higher proportion of murderers, and criminals in general, being men.
This difference in outcomes is not based on gender, even if it correlates with gender, so it won't go away as a result of eliminating any supposed social constructs that promote gender stereotypes. It's based on different behavioural traits associated with sex hormones, that establish a person's priorities, and that just happen to be found at higher concentration levels in a higher proportion of men, or women, depending on the hormone.
(Aside: ALL genders. Just wanted to get that out of the way :D)
Yes! Gender politics is a double edged sword in that way: in attempting to point out inequity it's easy to unintentionally reinforce gender dynamics even more (through defensiveness, raising the stakes, etc). To be clear, I see Bumble pointing out inequity, but not so much dismantling notions about gender, which I think is where most conversations about this stuff fall short. What I find is that the people who most vehemently disagree (and most thoughtfully oppose) my point of view on this often are gesturing at the same point on the horizon as I am: a future where gender just doesn't play as much of a role. But to get there we have to train ourselves to see all these "maladies," as you say.
> Inherent in that comment is the supposition that there is something toxic about masculinity itself.
Not quite. There is something toxic about certain traditionally masculine behaviors. That's why I was careful to use the as it's practiced in corporate culture language. Of course there are toxic feminine behaviors as well: IIRC former Uber engineer Susan Fowler's HR rep (a woman IIRC) gaslighted her, saying something like "the common thread here is you."
> you imply that Tinder is a part of [a gendered power structure]
Dude, the entire culture is entangled with a gendered power structure! But re: dating apps, I pretty specifically called out what's gendered about that experience i.e. an imabalance of abusive behavior.
> *don't gas light anyone who recognizes [a women run company] as a form of tribalism.
Not saying anyone's crazy to think that women-run is a kind of tribalism, I'm actually advocating for "stepping back from identarianism" as you say. People (esp. men in my experience) seem quick to defend against any kind of gendered accusation or even relatively benign discussion around gender, even if they don't personally have any skin in the game. It's as if the very topic presents an existential threat.
I agree with this, but your initial comment is creating gendered maladies that don't exist. How is an IP lawsuit a gendered issue?
I don't know too much about the case. It could be, as others here suspect, that this is just a savvy PR move and there's a valid IP claim. I kind of doubt it, but either way I think the article touches on larger points about gender politics (esp. that of dating apps) that are worth talking about regardless of the merits or outcome of this case.
Given that the app is designed around encouraging people to treat professional networking as a dating opportunity, it's not entirely clear in what direction they're trying to rebalance things.
- Just like in the dating app, women go first in the networking app, sending the signal that maybe it's not entirely about dating.
In the public perception their mission statement matters, but not to the law.
I don't know why, but this made me want to stop reading the article immediately.
The fact that the Bumble founders came from Tinder, of course they stole whatever IP and concepts they could. No question.
But there's still a long way to go here. And squabbles like this distract companies from making honest feature advances.
The core issue with Bumble or Tinder is that they aren't designed to help make matches, rather give people the perception of options.
This plays out in that men essentially swipe right on every woman they come across (we're forced to in order to have any chance of making a connection), and women end up bombarded with more choices than they can meaningful sort through.
I matched with 1-2 women a day, but my close friend who introduced me to Bumble matches on 70+ guys a day.
I have to craft witty, funny, and sexy messages... all under the pressure that I only have 2 choices that day.
She gets to disqualify guys if they take too long to write back, write too much, or for any reason she wants... knowing she has 70 more to choose from. (Worth noting that despite all the options, she's still single...)
Anyway, the whole thing could be a lot more efficient... lots of ways to go about this. Dating and finding love takes effort, compassion. These tools should, ideally, help make it less of a numbers game.
# First feature request
Let anyone pre-approve in bulk. "Pre-match me with anyone who is between this age rage in this zip code who mentions hiking..." simple as that. If you really want to go all out, just learn my type from my swipes and pre-match on that -- plus gives me incentive not to just swipe on everyone as it's learning what I like.
# Second feature request
Let users block based on rules. "I don't ever want to match with anyone who works for my company, Dynacorp, and I don't ever want anyone from Dynacorp to see my profile."
# Third feature request
Only show people to me I have the potential to match with. "I liked her... but unknown to me, she only likes guys who are older than me... she'll never see my profile to match back... why did I see her in the first place then?"
# Fourth feature request
Don't show people who have already swiped left. "I see her... but unknown to me, she's already swiped left on me... we'll never be a match, probably best to just not show her to me."
This is not at all true for all men (I have never heard of this being necessary from an IRL friend).