Female Courtship: An Exploratory Survey Amongst Male and Female UP Manila Students

Abstract

Feminist and Women’s liberation movements are gaining increasing acceptance in our society. With this, the courtship process has become less rigid giving way to the evolution of a phenomenon called Female Courtship. This research is an exploratory survey defining Female Courtship, its methods and how male and female students of the College of Arts and Sciences, U.P. Manila perceive it. All of the 120 respondents (60 males and 60 females) were sampled from the College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Manila. The study showed that indeed, Female Courtship or the “untraditional” kind of courtship characterized by females taking the active part of initiating or making the first move to get the guy she likes, happens in our society. Aside from defining Female Courtship, this study also enumerates the various ways by which Female Courtship is manifested. Finally, the perception of males and females are compared. It is found that there is not much difference as to the definitions given by the male and female respondents. From the frequency and percentage of the answer given by both male and females, it can be noted that their answers are similar. Comparing their perception on Female Courtship, one can derive from the data that males are more permissive than the females. Males are more open to the idea of Female Courtship than females. This also lead to the conclusion that there are still females who are conservative and who are basically influenced by the ascribed cultural roles that society dictates on them. In addition, Female Courtship although actually existing in society, is viewed by most respondents as not generally accepted in contemporary society.