# What do you as women think about ranking guys?



## superodalisque (Apr 25, 2015)

I was just reading an article and it got me thinking. guys even walk down the street yelling out numbers and opinions about women. rating women has been institutionalized in beauty pageants but suddenly when men get ranked it's a problem. I can understand not wanting to pigeon hole people out of kindness because I can't and won't rank a guy that way. but that is my personal decision. but it seems that when women _do _decide to rank or even discuss men it's a BIIIIG problem somehow. the most recent issue is the dating app called Lulu. what is your opinion about ranking? I can see both sides. here is the article if you want to read it too:


April 24, 2015 
*For Women, By Women, About Men*

*By Andrew Marantz*



 Credit ILLUSTRATION BY KRIS MUKAI In Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngarts novel set in a social-media dystopia, each person is publicly assigned a fuckability score, determined by various algorithms. Lulu, an app founded in 2013, is the closest anyone has come, so far, to making Shteyngarts vision come true. We look up everything these days, Alexandra Chong, Lulus founder, said recently. Before we go out for a drink, we look up bars. Why should we not also have references when it comes to the most important thing? Chong calls her startup a community where women can talk honestly about what matters to them. Others have called it Yelp for men.




Lulu is often called a dating app, but it is actually a rating app. (You can use it to prowl for potential datesits a free countrybut the app will not do it for you.) To rate a man on Lulu, you select from a battery of pre-written hashtagssome positive (#LifeOfTheParty, #DoesDishes), some negative (#Boring, #DeathBreath), and some ambiguous (#DrivesMeCrazy, #CharmedMyPantsOff, #PlaysDidgeridoo). Those responses are distilled into a harshly precise numerical score. Lulu is not exclusively about fuckability#MothersLoveHim, #OwnsCrocs, #SmellsAmazeballs, and #Belieber are also popular hashtagsbut its not _not_ about fuckability, either. Of course people on Lulu talk about sex, Chong said. Sex is part of what women talk about, in general. Im always making investors blush, because we rarely have a meeting where dick size or anal sex doesnt come up.




Lulu is rigidly heteronormativeonly women can rate menand it is built around a traditional gender binary. On Facebook, you can mark your gender as male, female, or custom, which opens a text box into which you can type bi-gender, genderqueer, or whatever you want. Chong has shown no interest in allowing users such freedom; Lulu is an app for straight women. This homogeneity may help account for the apps successmore than five million people have downloaded itbut the idea remains polarizing.
Its one of these rare products that evokes only strong reactions, Sam Altman told me. No one feels ambivalent about it. Altman is the president of Y Combinator, the foremost startup incubator in the country. In the world of straight online dating, women seem to have almost all of the power, he continued. Why, then, has Lulu not exploited its advantage by becoming a dating service? The pessimistic case is that they dont know howthey just got lucky with their first thing and theyre riding that out, Altman said. The more bullish case would be, what they have is so successful that they have no incentive to do anything elseat least not yet. And theres a third possible reason: plausible deniability. Facebook, in the early days, was very much used as a dating serviceyou could always claim you were using it for something else, even though virtually no one did. With this, if you market it as a service to help women or whatever, maybe more people are comfortable using it.

Women tend to use Lulu for advice about the things that most of us arent eager to talk about, the way someone investigating a potential mate a generation ago might have sought out the town busybody. During a recent user-testing session at Lulus sunny office in the Flatiron District, Sarah Burns, a twenty-four-year-old dancer and event planner, said that she uses Lulu mostly for caveat-emptor purposes, such as managing expectations before a date. One guy I went out with had a lot of hashtags like #OneTrackMind, so I dressed conservatively, didnt drink too muchI tried to send the message, Im not going home with you tonight. Which I didnt. Other people use the app to avoid unpromising one-night stands. A friend and I got back from the bars one night, and we were on Lulu, Burns said. Shed been texting with this guy all night, so Im, like, Look him up. He had a 3.1out of 10which is, like, really not good. No one who had dated him gave him a good rating, and no one who had hooked up with him gave him a good rating. So it was sort of, like, whats the point? She texted him some excuse and went to sleep.

Taylor Morgan, also twenty-four, lives in Monmouth County, New Jersey. On her phone, she searched for a guy she knew, then pulled up his profile photo (biceps, hair gel). He has a 6.1, which seems fair, although, granted, Ive never hooked up with him, she said. But the hashtags are incredibly spot-on. The ones in redchosen by the women who had rated himtold a cogent story: #AddictedToMirrors, #ShouldComeWithAWarning. The hashtags in bluethe ones he had chosen for himselftold more or less the same story: #Cocky, #PerfectStubble, #SexPanther. This was all fascinating, in a trainwreck sort of way, but it was also useful cautionary information. Its one thing to meet someone who has perfect stubble; its another thing to learn that he is willing to apply that description to himself. If a girl wants to go there, she will at least know what shes getting into, Morgan said.



Also, Im sorry, but he gave himself #DoesntKissAndTell? Burns said. How can you give yourself that and #SexPanther at the same time?



A man must grant his permission for a Lulu profile to be created on his behalf, and, perhaps surprisingly, most men consent, Chong said. Five per cent deactivate their profiles at some point, but, within a week, one-third of those men come back. We try to tell men, Women on Lulu are building men up, not just tearing them down,  Chong added, and its true that plenty of profiles, perhaps those created by a mans current partner or an amicable ex, are 9.5s rife with compliments. When they arent, though, is it really the companys responsibility to protect mens feelings? Women who write controversial video-game reviews might be deluged with rape threats; is it such a big deal if a few men are accused of having #NoEdge?
Chong did not embrace this retributive logic. She did not even go so far as to call Lulu a feminist enterprise. She did, however, say this: Twitter can be really scary for women. Reddit is for men. Pinterest ended up being majority-female, but only by accident. Im glad that Lulu is a place that is, 
intentionally, for women.

Recently, the app introduced a feature called Truth Bombs. It allows 
anonymous users to solicit insights from the rest of the communitylike Cosmo Confessions, but unedited and in real time. Most of these discussions do not come close to passing the Bechdel test, and many are puerile or worse. Recent threads include Do you like sex and FAV IF YOU THINK CHRIS BROWN IS HOT AF. Other threads, though, seem like sincere requests for advice, by and for straight women: After how many months do guys say I love you? Recently, amid all of this, there was a desperate young woman in Wisconsin threatening self-harm: I just wanna cut again. Several users responded swiftlyThat is definitely the wrong choice sweetheartand offered to talk her down in a private thread. She agreed.


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## loopytheone (Apr 26, 2015)

I like how the authors of this article claim that nobody is ambivalent about the app despite my complete reaction being that. I honestly think it sounds mildly amusing but that is about it. 

As far as rating people in general is concerned? I don't have a problem with it in a joking, tongue in cheek kinda way, but I'd never dream of doing it seriously. Because how can you assess a person with numbers as if you are being objective when it is so subjective? 

Then again, this seems to be a glorified hook up app so I'm not exactly the intended audience.


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## superodalisque (Apr 26, 2015)

the hashtags really made me laugh.


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## Green Eyed Fairy (Apr 26, 2015)

I do it as a joke myself......as in all the jokes about cock size....on a board where I have seen serious discussions about how big the biggest ass is.....

Yeah, it's considered "not nice" when I do it. Somehow....it's......different.


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## superodalisque (Apr 26, 2015)

Green Eyed Fairy said:


> I do it as a joke myself......as in all the jokes about cock size....on a board where I have seen serious discussions about how big the biggest ass is.....
> 
> Yeah, it's considered "not nice" when I do it. Somehow....it's......different.


 
see that's the part I cant figure out

I get it for saying I wish guys would wear tighter clothes so you can see their body. a lot of guys wear really baggy clothes now. that makes me a bad girl but when guys say they want to see women in clothes where they can see what their body looks no problem lol. why can't I see toooo!


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## Tad (Apr 27, 2015)

Not commenting on the question, but just to say that a LOT of guys think that this sort of rating of women is in poor taste and don't do it. That some do it doesn't mean that all do it or approve of it.


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## GoodDaySir (Apr 27, 2015)

Yea I dont know any guys that would "rank" chicks and take each other seriously.

And when I rank dudes, its either Yes, I would fuck them or No, I wouldnt fuck them.


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## Tracyarts (Apr 27, 2015)

So, this is an app where subscribed women can anonymously "rank" real life men, describing their pros and cons, for it to be read by other women, anonymously?

Like writing on a virtual bathroom stall wall or something? 

And it's supposed to be honest? In that other women are supposed to read these "rankings" and believe that they are in any way objective and not emotionally biased?

That's funny. Like full-on laugh out loud funny.


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## superodalisque (Apr 29, 2015)

Tad said:


> Not commenting on the question, but just to say that a LOT of guys think that this sort of rating of women is in poor taste and don't do it. That some do it doesn't mean that all do it or approve of it.


 

I think and a lot of guys who come to this forum and site should read this if you want to view the hashtags he is talking about please click on the link :

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astr..._discussing_women_s_issues_gets_derailed.html

#YesAllWomen


By Phil Plait 









 
Photo by Shutterstock / ollyy



_The following article is a discussion about violence, violence against women, and the oppression women face every day. Have a care if these topics disturb you. Note too: I am a cisgender male, and the hashtags I discuss below deal with the issues in binary men/women terms, so I do as well. Trans and other folks may well have very different feelings about these issues, and I welcome their input._


On Friday, May 23, 2014, a man killed six people (and possibly himself). The manifesto he left behind stated he did it because women wouldn’t sleep with him. I won’t recount the details here; they can be found easily enough. I also won’t speculate on the controversies involving his mental health, or about the NRA, or the police involvement in this. I want to focus on a narrower point here, and that has to do with men and women, and their attitudes toward each other.The murderer was active on men’s rights fora, where women are highly objectified, to say the very least. They are seen as nonhuman by many such groups, and at the very least lesser than men—sometimes nothing more than targets or things to acquire. What these men write puts them, to me, in the same category as White Power movements, or any other horribly bigoted group that “others” anyone else. While it may not be possible to blame the men’s rights groups for what happened, from the reports we’ve seen they certainly provided an atmosphere of support.



Phil Plait 

Of course, these loathsome people represent a very small percentage of men out there. Over the weekend, as the discussion across Twitter turned to these horrible events, a lot of men started tweeting this, saying “not all men are like that.” It’s not an unexpected response. However, it’s also not a helpful one.

Why is it not helpful to say “not all men are like that”? For lots of reasons. 

*For one, women know this. They already know not every man is a rapist, or a murderer, or violent. They don’t need you to tell them.*


*Second, it’s defensive. When people are defensive, they aren’t listening to the other person; they’re busy thinking of ways to defend themselves. I watched this happen on Twitter, over and again.*


*Third, the people saying it aren’t furthering the conversation, they’re sidetracking it. The discussion isn’t about the men who aren’t a problem. (Though, I’ll note, it can be. I’ll get back to that.) Instead of being defensive and distracting from the topic at hand, try staying quiet for a while and actually listening to what the thousands upon thousands of women discussing this are saying.*

*Fourth—and this is important, so listen carefully—when a woman is walking down the street, or on a blind date, or, yes, **in an elevator alone**, she doesn’t know which group you’re in. You might be the potential best guy ever in the history of history, but there’s no way for her to know that. A fraction of men out there are most definitely not in that group. Which are you? Inside your head you know, but outside your head it’s impossible to.*
*This is the reality women deal with all the time.*


Before what I’m saying starts edging into mansplaining, let me note that also over the weekend, the hashtag #YesAllWomen started. It was a place for women to counter the #NotAllMen distraction, and to state clearly and concisely what they actually and for real have to deal with. All the time.

Reading them was jarring, unsettling. I have many friends who are vocal feminists, and it’s all too easy to see what they deal with for the crime of Being a Woman on the Internet. But this hashtag did more than deal with the rape threats, the predators, the violence.
It was the everyday sexism, the everyday misogyny, which struck home. The leering, the catcalls, the groping, the societal othering, the miasma of all this that women bear the brunt of every damn day.

Those tweets say it far better than I ever could, for many reasons. The most important is because I’m a man, _so I haven’t lived through what they have_. I can’t possibly understand it at the level they do, no matter how deeply disturbed I am by the situation and how sympathetic I may be to what they’ve gone through.

This is not a failing, or an admission of weakness. It’s a simple truth. I’m a white, middle-class male, so I can understand intellectually what black people have undergone, or what women have dealt with, or what Japanese-Americans suffered in America in World War II. As someone raised Jewish, I may have more of an understanding for what an oppressed people have withstood in general, but I’ve never really been oppressed myself. That puts me in a position of—yes—privilege.

All that means is that I can only speak from my own point of view, and try to understand others as best I can. When it comes to sexism, to my shame, that took me a long, long time to figure out. I had to have my head handed to me many times in many embarrassing situations to see how I was participating in that culture, that everyday sexism. It was like air, all around me, so pervasive that I didn’t see it, even when I was in it and a part of it.

What made that harder was coming to an understanding that I will never truly understand what women go through. I can’t. So I listen to what women say about it, try to understand as best I can, and try to modify my own behavior as needed to make things better.
I’ve done a _lot_ of modifying over the years. And there’s still a long way to go.

Over the weekend, I retweeted a few of the #YesAllWomen tweets I thought were most important, or most powerful, and saw that again and again they were misunderstood. *In almost all the cases I saw, the men commenting were reacting to it, being defensive about the hashtag instead of listening to what was being said.*

Earlier, I mentioned that the conversation is about the men who are the problem, not the ones who aren’t. Well, at this point, a conversation needs to be had about them, too. Even though we may not be the direct problem, we still participate in the cultural problem. If we’re quiet, we’re part of the problem. If we don’t listen, if we don’t help, if we let things slide for whatever reason, then we’re part of the problem, too.

We men need to do better.

Part of this problem is the mislaying of blame, and the misdirection of what to do. When it comes to legal action, to the enforcement of rules, to societal pressure, it all comes down on the women and not the men.
Which leads me to the best tweet using this hashtag that a man put up.


That is _exactly_ right. We need to change the way we talk to boys in our culture as well as change the way we treat women.
And one final word on this. As a man, having written this post I expect there will be comments insulting me, comments questioning my manhood (whatever twisted definition those people have of such a thing, if it even exists), and so on.

But you know what there _won’t_ be? People threatening to stalk me and rape me and kill me for having the audacity to say *that women are people, and that we should be listening to them instead of telling them how to feel.* Yet that is _precisely_ what every woman on the Internet would face if she were to write this.

And that is, sadly, why we so very much need the #YesAllWomen hashtag.


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## superodalisque (Apr 29, 2015)

Tracyarts said:


> So, this is an app where subscribed women can anonymously "rank" real life men, describing their pros and cons, for it to be read by other women, anonymously?
> 
> Like writing on a virtual bathroom stall wall or something?
> 
> ...


 
it would be a neat experiment though to see if the descriptions match up to what you already know -- like astrology. i think that is what this one is doing. it's tongue in cheek. I wonder why we don't assume we tell the truth as easily as we assume each other is telling a lie? that's very different from the assumptions in a lot of similar men's forums. it's interesting that at least some women have found the opinions reliable for them to decide not to go out when women who don't know who the other is at all say the same things about a guy. 

we're supposed to be totally emotional crazy and unreliable but i wonder if that is really so true or is that a story that we just keep telling ourselves when we don't want to believe what someone has to say about a guy we are interested in. because, really, if a woman is interested she will date a guy no matter what anybody says anyway.


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## Tad (May 4, 2015)

superodalisque said:


> I think and a lot of guys who come to this forum and site should read this if you want to view the hashtags he is talking about please click on the link :



Given that this is the BBW board, and to prevent further de-railing of the thread I won't respond here. I suppose a discussion about usage of language would be best served on Hyde Park, perhaps?
ETA: therefore I took it here


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## superodalisque (May 5, 2015)

Tad said:


> Given that this is the BBW board, and to prevent further de-railing of the thread I won't respond here. I suppose a discussion about usage of language would be best served on Hyde Park, perhaps?
> ETA: therefore I took it here


 
language isn't the problem. I think sometimes people are so used to feeling that they should be shaping conversations both online and in the real world that they might not be conscious that they are even doing it.


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