If everybody pays for their own food then you go Dutch. Going Dutch refers to everybody paying their own expenses and is usually meant in a dining out situation. The term is thought to have come from the idea of a Dutch door. Typically on farmhouses, they were made from two equal parts, like a stable door.
During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the women's movement encouraged women to look at aspects of their lives in a political way. This meant challenging many frameworks and assumptions in three major areas: Legally, socially and sexually.
These attitudes were also applied to courtship roles and it was held (and still is) that it is mature, empowering and self respecting for women to pay their own way and so going Dutch became a more popular concept. It may appear, on the surface of it, to be a minor step but the implications are huge. It means that women are rejecting traditional gender role assumptions that it is the duty of the man to pay for dinner or any other courtship costs, and so women are making an equal investment in the cost of the dating and the developing relationship.
Going Dutch is also an ideal way to be able to afford to eat out if there is no one member of the party able to foot the entire bill. Although traditionally, going Dutch meant that every person paid for just their own expenses, it is now seen as nitpicking and mean if someone picks up the bill and tries to work out what they owe purely from what they had. It is now more likely that the bill is split evenly unless someone has had something that was particularly expensive and has said that they will contribute the extra.
During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the women's movement encouraged women to look at aspects of their lives in a political way. This meant challenging many frameworks and assumptions in three major areas: Legally, socially and sexually.
These attitudes were also applied to courtship roles and it was held (and still is) that it is mature, empowering and self respecting for women to pay their own way and so going Dutch became a more popular concept. It may appear, on the surface of it, to be a minor step but the implications are huge. It means that women are rejecting traditional gender role assumptions that it is the duty of the man to pay for dinner or any other courtship costs, and so women are making an equal investment in the cost of the dating and the developing relationship.
Going Dutch is also an ideal way to be able to afford to eat out if there is no one member of the party able to foot the entire bill. Although traditionally, going Dutch meant that every person paid for just their own expenses, it is now seen as nitpicking and mean if someone picks up the bill and tries to work out what they owe purely from what they had. It is now more likely that the bill is split evenly unless someone has had something that was particularly expensive and has said that they will contribute the extra.
