I believe online dating has made single women overall less happy, less likely to find a long-term partner, and more at risk of sexual violence. All of which has only gotten worse since the pandemic, when dating sites have become pretty much the only way to date for millions of people across the world.
But dating apps have led to the normalization of abuses which would have been considered appalling in other, supposedly less progressive eras. Unsolicited dick pics, harassing messages, and the non-consensual sharing of nudes are now routine features of dating for women across demographics.
Yet they do next to nothing to help women with their very real concerns. These are astronomical figures, and yet somehow still largely left out of the online dating conversation. Bumble, for example, which calls itself a feminist app, has had a number of reported cases of stalking, sexual assault and rape, and users have been quoted as saying that the company has failed to address their concerns as they would have hoped.
Their marketing teams would have us believe that everybody who swipes is about to walk off into the sunset with a soulmate.
Since the pandemic, the invasion of Big Dating into our most intimate of spaces has led to an overwhelming of courtship by corporations: corporations which above all want our time, our money and our data, rather than to see us find love or even good sex. Multiple studies have shown that the hookup sex often associated with online dating is less satisfying for women overall. The capitalistic takeover of dating will continue to be very bad for women, tearing away at our opportunities to find love and lasting relationships and destroying our self-esteem as studies say dating apps do.
