For years, I split the bill on dates. As a Latina from a lineage of women whose lives had been micro-managed by family patriarchs, I thought I was breaking bad generational patterns by interacting with men as equals rather than as providers.
But recently, I started getting pushback from some of my friends. They argued that because of the persisting gender pay gap, it’s actually now properly feminist to expect men to pay on first dates and contribute more financially in relationships.