If the woman asks, she may resent that decision years later, Ms. Velazquez said. “If she jumps the gun, five years down the line that action might backfire. She might say to her husband: ‘Why didn’t you ask me? I don’t have the great story to tell people about how you proposed.’”
And what better way to tell that story than on social media. Despite our share-all mentality, in which one click equals global announcement, people still care about how they’re seen by others.
“Women don’t want to be seen as less feminine, or too sexual or coming on too strong. And there’s a concern for men about being publicly emasculated,” said Beth Montemurro, a professor of sociology at Penn State University.
“When you look at how public social media makes things, it could be holding people back,” Professor Montemurro said. “They may be afraid to take bigger risks and break gender roles because they’re concerned with how their story will come across.”
Specialists also surmise that women aren’t more forthcoming because they lack encouraging illustrations.
“We don’t have many positive examples” of women who have proposed, Professor Parkin said. “Those that have asked men have not been successful in our eyes. Pink and Britney Spears asked their men to marry, and those marriages either ended poorly or didn’t do well in the beginning,” she said, (although Pink reunited with her husband and they are still married).