Bumble’s billboards. Credit: Cluffalo via X
Dating sites and apps always promote themselves as modern and liberal. The truth of the matter is they are still very backwards and only consider “men” as their paying customers and women as their “products.”
The dating apps give themselves away in their advertisements. The most recent incident is that of Bumble, where they were literally shaming women for not using their app despite being founded by a woman.
They still use the age-old technique of telling women that dating is good for them, whereas newspapers and other media make it clear day by day that men are getting more radicalized and becoming more and more violent against women.
These dating sites do not give a damn about women.
They do a lot of things to show that they are on women‘s side—for example, only women can message first or start a conversation on Bumble. This has been marketed as giving the upper hand to women, whereas it is merely encouraging the women-chasing-men narrative.
In the patriarchy, there is already a narrative that men are a prize that women are chasing. This feature only fuels that narrative.
They will not even include a safety feature or a basic background check to filter out criminals from the site, but will lecture women on how they must live their lives. There are incidents of women getting killed during first dates.
Now, let us look at the dating site Ashley Madison and delve into some aspects highlighted in the Netflix docuseries on the same topic:
1. The name ‘Ashley Madison’
It is mentioned in the docuseries that ‘Ashley’ and ‘Madison’ were two of the most popular girl names and sounded upper class, which is why they came up with the dating site name.
This is like using women’s names as bait to attract their male clients, which is extremely disrespectful to women.
2. Advertisements Targeting Men
The marketing team of Ashley Madison was predominantly male. Advertisements were designed to appeal to men while being disrespectful to women in the beginning.
3. Women were an Afterthought in Advertisements
To increase their sales, they started advertising to women. As more and more men joined, there was a dearth of women on the site. They made fake profiles of women and used their pictures without consent.
4. Using ‘Feminism’ to Encourage Women to Make Themselves Available to Men
Most terrible people call themselves feminists to sell a product to women, such as Noel Biderman, former CEO of Ashley Madison, who called himself a ‘postmodern feminist’ helping women escape patriarchal marriages
5. Men Know the Vulnerabilities of Women and How Badly They Treat Women
Noel Biderman talks about how husbands are rude and inconsiderate to their wives—the irony! They use those vulnerabilities to market a product for men. They still don’t see women as paying customers but rather as tools to attract paying men.
6. Money over Everything
The greed exhibited by these dating sites in pursuit of revenue is truly shocking.
As long as they made money, they didn’t even fulfill basic promises—claims of anonymity and cybersecurity were false. Despite earning a good income, they only focused on growth and wouldn’t even do the bare minimum.
This is the same with Bumble—they wouldn’t implement security features for women but would spend a lot on marketing that disrespects women’s choices.
7. Men Using Their Own Wives for Image and Career
Noel Biderman used his wife to market his product, featuring her in billboards to attract more female customers. He portrayed a perfect marriage image while cheating on her and even forced her to lie on TV.
Another man, Sam Rader, shown in the docuseries, used his wife’s pregnancy announcement/test to gain popularity on YouTube.
Source: Stills from Ashley Madison: Sex, Lies & Scandal (Netflix)
8. Religion and Shame
Both men affected by the data breach shown in the docuseries, Sam Rader and John Gibson, came from religious backgrounds.
The shame and guilt inflicted by religions do not prevent people from doing bad things. Instead, they force them to hide their actions, often resulting in worse outcomes.
9. How people hide behind religions and use them to absolve themselves of accountability is another aspect to consider.
Another misuse of religion is the expectation of forgiveness, regardless of one’s actions. In the docuseries, Sam Rader claims at some point that God has forgiven him.
10. Women still place marriage and being “a perfect wife” on a pedestal.
In the docuseries, the two wives who were cheated on, Nia Rader and Christi Gibson, loved their families and husbands. They did not deserve the treatment they received from their husbands.
Despite the betrayal and the risk he subjected her and their family to, Nia Rader continued to stay with her husband, portraying the image of a “good Christian wife.”
