Is America an Equal Opportunity Land: How Women are Mistreated in Online Dating

Technology has made it easy for customers to purchase goods online. With just a click, people can purchase whatever they want online. Various items are sold on multiple websites such as clothing, furniture, electronics, or other items. Since a customer cannot have direct contact with the item, he/she has to rely on the image of the product, its description, appearance, design, the date of manufacture and customers reviews to decide whether to purchase the product or not. Online dating works in the same manner. Online dating is a common trend among young people since it is convenient for them to find mates. Online dating is used by those people who are busy and therefore do not find time to interact with friends to increase their chances of getting romantic partners. Since people do not meet in person, online dating depends on a person's profile picture and how they describe themselves to attract other people to invite for a date.

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Additionally, other factors determine the user's preference including the age of the person, religion, education, physical attractiveness, age, race, income, and political affiliations. In online dating women are considered as the products to be purchased by men. Therefore, women need to market themselves, so that they can stand out. It is essential to have a good profile picture and a fascinating personal description to be unique and increase the chances of being selected by men. Women are in today's world considered to be like merchandizes, which need to be the most attractive and fancy for them to sell in the love market. Therefore, America is a varied opportunity land, especially by mistreating the women in the online dating sites based on lack of choice on aspects such as their preferred race and culture, physical appearance, and the education levels of their preferred spouses.

Today, society is a face judging world. Most people use false information on their online dating profiles in the efforts of making themselves more attractive to their suitors. Physical attractiveness is such an important factor in online dating because the level of physical attractiveness is immediately visible to others. In other words, physical attractiveness has proven to be one of the strongest determinants of interpersonal attraction, since, aesthetics is part of the human nature. Although physical attractiveness tends to be considered more important by men, it is also a strong predictor of attraction for women. Physical attractiveness is more important to the female than to the male gender role. The feminist theory suggests that physical appearance is more imperative for women than for men's status in society, whereas, men are more likely to be judged on a wider collection of qualities. Studies have shown that unattractive women are regarded more undesirably by colleagues than unappealing men.

Most of the experimental work reviewed demonstrated that physical attractiveness was positively related to interpersonal attraction. When a target photo was presented, women rated more physically attractive photos higher on a scale of interpersonal attraction. All those extra pixels allowed the pretty faces to outshine the others all the more. Appearance is most important when it comes to dating especially for online romance. It is almost impossible for users to know another person attribute via real conversation or nonverbal communication. Therefore, the only standard is the profile picture that one puts on. Rudder mentions that "all those extra pixels allowed the pretty faces to outshine the others all the more. The rich got richer" (1665-1666). Rudder gives the example that with the new design of OKCupid profile picture getting bigger than before, the inequality between users becomes more apparent. Because the profile pictures at OKCupid can be amplified, users can see each other's faces more clearly. This action lets those pretty faces attract more attention than their previous bio while the others will be criticized harder.

There are other factors that men consider when they are searching for the kind of women they want. Studies show that attributes such as age and race determine a mate's preference (Hitsch, Hortacsu and Ariely 410). Age plays an important role when both genders are looking for potential partners. People always set a standard for their counterparts. In Dataclysm, Christian Rudder mentions that "women want men to age with them while men always desire younger women" (593). Christian Rudder's statement agrees with what Hitsch et al. claim his research. Women prefer men who are of the same age as them.

On the other hand, men think women who are younger are better than older women. Men find young girls to be more attractive, making it hard for women to find their ideal partners. When men set up the age filter, it eliminates a significant number of women from the preferred bracket. Rudder also expresses his opinion in Dataclysm that "men do seem at sea, pulled to some receding horizon. ... women still on solid ground, ashore, just watching them disappear" (593). He uses the metaphor to describe the difference between men and women when searching for their significant partners. He thinks that men put on an effort trying to find women they like; on the other hand, women do nothing but wait. He forgets the fact that the society sets a norm those women should wait for men to pursue them. This idea puts women in a passive situation that they cannot find who they truly like. The society does not encourage women to be the one to pursue their mates. Women who decide to look for their desired mates often have to endure the pressure, opinions, and misconceptions prevailing in the society. Rudder thinks men prefer young girls, especially those in their 20s. However, Hitsch et al. state that men prefer women around their age or a few years younger (415). Rudder and Hitsch et al. do not agree with each other, but they both conclude that men do like young girls. Age does matter for men and women to be picked or not in the dating sites.

People judge others not only based on physical appearance and age but also based on race on online dating sites. Race affects one's preferences when he/she is searching for his/her ideal mate. Rudder writes that "being black costs you about three-quarters of a star in your rating, even if you're at the top" (1399-1400). He provides a box plot of the range of women's scores where the upper bound of black women is in the middle of white women, Asian women, and Latinas. Black women are at a disadvantage compared with other races because of their skin color. This is a bad idea that pulls the society apart as Rudder says in Dataclysm. Skin color is just like the appearance of the product. Customers might have their color preferences when buying cars or iPhones which do not affect the products' performance at all. People have "gender stereotypes of their respective cultures and unwittingly express them through online venues. Thus, it is only natural to investigate whether culture influences gender differences in facial prominence." Racial bias affects many women especially colored-women, who are perceived not to meet the expectation of beauty. The power of prejudice has proven to be so strong, that women who are considered unattractive because of their skin color can be hurt and they can start to doubt themselves for something they inherited from their parents. A preference towards one's race is acceptable, but it does not mean other ethnicities are not good enough. Every ethnic group has its advantages and disadvantages and therefore what matters is a person's personality and not his/her skin color. Rudder indicates that Asian, white women, and latina are more likely to choose white men than other races. On the other hand, Hitsch et al. believe that women tend to have same-race preferences. However, the two researchers agree that black people especially black women are underrated and underappreciated.

A research conducted to determine the mate preferences in online dating found out that the site composed of 85.33% Whites, 1.62% Blacks, 4.53% Hispanic, 4.24% Asians, and 3.74% from other ethnic groups (Gunter, Hortacsu and Ariely 399). The population involved was from Boston and San Diego (Gunter, Hortacsu and Ariely 398). Only three percent of the contacts made by whites favored a black person. The low percentage of Blacks in the sites despite their relatively higher population in the cities was alarming. The research revealed that both genders preferred mates of the same race. White men contacted and viewed the profiles of white women more than black women by ten percent (Gunter, Hortacsu and Ariely 419).). In another research by Mendelsohn, Taylor, Fiore, and Cheshire (9), it was reported that only twelve percent of the contacts made by whites were to other races with a staggering eighty-eight percent made to whites.

Another aspect considered to determine racial discrimination in online dating was the reciprocation of messages. In online dating, a user views a profile and contacts the individual by sending a message. The user chooses to respond to the message or to ignore. Mendelsohn et al. (10) sought to analyze the messages reciprocated by both Whites and Blacks. The study found that Whites responded to nineteen percent of messages from White users but only responded to sixteen percent of messages from Black users (Mendelsohn et al. 10). Black men, on the other hand, reciprocated to twenty-five percent of messages from White users and twenty-two percent from Black users (Mendelsohn et al. 10). From the data, it is clear that messages from Black women received less response than that from White users. This difference in response points towards discrimination of Black women in online dating. An interesting observation derived from the data shows that Black women were more open to dating White women, as compared to the low preference on the white men preferring to date black women. The US Census Bureau reported that the ratio of Black Husband/White wife to White Husband/Black wife was 2:1 showing how white men are less likely to marry Black women (Mendelsohn et al. 10).

It is therefore clear that discrimination plays a great part in online dating. Black women are at a disadvantage due to their skin color. White men are less likely to respond to their message in the online dating sites and also do not desire them for long-term relationships. This conversely relates to the rising percentage of black men preferring white men. It puts the women of color in an unfavorable position, such that the trend is growing favoring the discrimination of black women by both the black and white males. Additionally, women are presented as objects from the two types of research, where they are not given powers to select their preferred mates actively, but only have the chance to accept the fate presented to them. Therefore, women are considered as commodities that are sold in the love market and therefore, they ought to be attractive enough to cause men to like them. This includes being discriminated on the basis of the factors that they do not have control over, such as their color.

Conclusion

Additionally, educational status has emerged to be a significant virtue considered by online users during the process of selecting their preferred mates. According to Whyte and Benno (7), parallel education culture and experience provides a strengthening factor in the connection between the new individuals as well as the success of the long-term relationship. Additionally, David, states that the level of education level is a significant consideration, where most of the online users prefer partners with the same educational levels. However, this starts to waver as the individual's age. According to an excerpt from resea...