I chose to do a short passage this time and the passage I chose is from the very bottom of page 51 and top of page 52.
" By entering sexual relationships, however, they could supplement their wages with free evenings on the town, free meals in restaurants, and sometimes gifts and money. In many cases, the new sexual expression allowed women to partcipate in the urban consumer economy.
Even in the most innocent dating, men customarily paid for the evening's entertainment. Women, in return, gave limited sexual favors, ranging from charming companionship to sexual intercourse."
This particular passage interested me because it resembles our idea of dating now. This seems like it was the start of what we now know as dating and it seems crazy that women went out on dates with men, only because they couldn't afford things on their own. I would like to think that now women only go out for dates with men to look for companionship, but it still seems as if some go for 'free' things too. Later on, about two paragraphs down from this it says " Girls who have 'steadies' are regarded as fortuante indeed. " I think this is saying that these women who had a steady were not in a committed relationship as we would see it now, but were getting gifts from men and were enjoying their lives more.
The meaning behind this passage is clear it is just that women in this time period didn't have enough money to do things on their own so they took to men to have them buy things for them, while giving them favors in return- similar to our dating now. My reaction to this is almost confusion. Does that make me a hustler when I go out on a date and the man pays? It seems like a norm now that men pay, but when you look at it in this context the men are only paying because the women have no money.
So that leads me to my discussion question: If men paid because women had no money, then why is it still the norm for men to pay since women now have money of their own, and do you think that going out on a date with man and having them pay is for everything makes you a prostitute?
