The Female Dating Strategy, once dubbed “The meanest female-only place on the internet” is a subreddit group created by women, for women who share tips and advice about dating, self- development, and self discernment. The subreddit group helps women tap into their potential, unlock their inner power, realize their worth, and recognize that they are the prize. Where was this community years ago? You ask? Well here they are now! Women of all ages, racial and ethnic backgrounds come together with one common interest: To empower, and level one another up. It is a collaborative and supportive online community. Now growing as a platform, founders Reaux, Lilith, and Savannah tells us more about this community and it’s background:
“It was a part of a general trend on reddit towards more female focused subreddits because reddit is something that is 70% male.” Said by Reaux, ⅓ of the founders of the FDS subreddit group.
“They were generally overrun with men constantly commenting, derailing threads everytime we would talk about something personal they would jump in and say something else. A Lot of women wanted more female focused and female centered spaces.” The Female Dating Strategy had become a part of this wave. But what makes this group so special? “One of the things that make the Female Dating Strategy subreddit stand out is that we don’t allow men to comment”. Said by Savannah, ⅔ of the founders of the FDS group. “We do this by having a flair system. Our fantastic group of female moderators, who look after the subreddit, manually check every comment and approve each post so we give them a flair, before they can comment. So if a guy tries to comment, it won’t appear and it will get caught up and automatically deleted.” Savannah said. “That is what has made this group really unpopular on subreddit because we have so many men trying to get in, give in their two cents, and they just can’t get in. That really really bothers them.” Savannah said.“It was accidental but it ended up becoming a genius marketing strategy,” said Lilith, the third founder of the FDS group. “Because we didn’t let them comment they would cross post it to another subreddit where they could comment and then that just spread the message.” Lilith said.
No other subreddit has been able to keep it just for the community that is meant to serve: women who are looking to level up. Here’s more about the popular all female sub-reddit admins, and what they expect for their women. Let’s level up!
Q: What’s one thing that you feel all women should know and to live by when it comes to their dating life?
Reaux: You don’t have to put up with bad treatment. If you’re in a relationship and you feel bad most of the time, it’s time to move on. You can’t change a man. You may as well just break up with him and be happy you’re single.
Savannah: If he wanted too he would. If you apply that to any relationship that you are in, you will very quickly be able to identify if you are being short changed in your interactions.
Q: What do you aspire for all women to have for themselves?
Reaux: The feeling of respect and reciprocity in their relationships. I think that seems to be the number one complaint that a lot of women have about their partnerships. It’s that a lot of the time they dont feel partnerships because they feel that they aren’t being heard, they aren’t getting the amount of respect a person in a relationship who is an adult, and isn’t trying to have a relationship with another person who is getting. As well as feeling like men hear them, and are willing to respond to their concerns.
Q: What were some of your favorite posts from women in the community, who’ve posted on The Female Dating Strategy?
Savannah: “The dick size matters”. She says after laughing! Purely because of the reaction that it got from reddit. It was essentially written by one of our moderators basically saying that dick size matters. It wasn’t saying that it’s only big dicks matter, but it was saying that a guy’s size matters. Some women like it bigger, some can take it smaller, and it all depends. It wasn’t lambasting a certain size, it was saying that it does matter and women have a right to have a preference in that area.
Reaux: Mine would be where women give accounts on walking out in the face of disrespect. There was a woman who walked into a date and she said to her “You have a body that would make my ex-wife jealous!”. She says that she didn’t even sit down, she just turned in her heels and walked out! Just hearing stories of women and absolutely owning their self-esteem, power, and walking out in the face of disrespect, I love seeing those posts!
Lilith: It was one written by a mod, and the title was “Dear Men Who Lurk FDS: We are coming for your girlfriends!” It was written to be humorous, or sort-of tongue in cheek, like “Oh yeah, all of you mean trying to comment on FDS, complaining that our standards are too high, guess what? Your girlfriend is probably browsing FDS and she’s going to dump you if you don’t level up” kind of thing. A lot of men seem to take that as a personal attack, and it got mass reports about threatening violence, even-though there was nothing violent said at all. They just think that the idea of their girl breaking up with them, is violence. To them — they see that as violence.
After hearing their thoughts as a collective, the women also shared individual important keynotes they want for women to know. Starting with Reaux, she shares her thoughts on why ruthlessness is an important skill to have when dating as a woman.
“The concept of dating strategy is to minimize the amount of harm, and maximize our positive dating. When you see negative behavior you have to be very ruthless about cutting it off. A Lot of women start to get exhausted and it starts to get depressing when you are having a lot of repeated negative interactions with men. Especially if you’re someone who does online dating, and if you’re a frequent dater. The entire ruthless strategy portion is a statement of the idea that you don’t have to put up with any type of disrespect, things that don’t make you feel pleasant, and tolerate exactly zero bullshit.” Reaux said.
“It’s about spending a lot less time engaging in negative behaviors with horrible men, then you give yourself the opportunity to meet great men and also not to damage yourself along the way as you’re slacking through the mud. Your cut off game has to be ruthless. You don’t argue. Block and delete. Reaux said. “What we call ruthlessness in a more equitable role for women would just be common sense. I feel like it’s almost always seen as ruthless or extreme by people especially for outsiders because it’s not seen as women just walking away from the first sign of disrespect . It’s not seen as normal for women to have high standards.” Reaux said.
Race and colorism are also catalysts for negative dating experiences for women. Host Savannah, elaborates on her experiences with colorism in dating, as a Black woman. “It can manifest in the most common way where you hear Black men say ‘ ‘I don’t like dark skinned women’ even if they are darker than the women, and almost putting lighter skinned women on a pedestal.” Savannah says. “This doesn’t only erode relationships between Black men and Black women, but it also creates unnecessary competition between women. Especially these light skinned women who end up taking the bait who start to think that they are better than Black women because these men are able to degrade their women in favor of them. Until they start getting the same shitty, and misogynistic treatment from these men.” After sharing response, Savannah encourages women to “go where they are celebrated”. “Be open to dating men of other races, they are men out there who won’t degrade you because of the color of your skin.” she said.
Lilith, discusses the importance of parenthood, protecting your womb, and vetting out the right man to be a great fit for a father. Because shitty behaviors will manifest into the children and affect their development in the long run. “I see this trend in the secular world that treats women’s ability to reproduce as a willy-nilly thing. They don’t seem to take it as seriously as it should be. I think that created life is meaningful and important, it should be seen as sacred.” She adds, “Something that is really important and taken seriously. A lot of people don’t put enough thought into who is going to be the father of their child, or whether they are even ready to have kids. I think children are very important and there needs to be a lot of effort put into raising children because they are the future. It’s very important to choose the right father for your children because he’s going to be modeling behavior in your child — and children learn from imitation.”
“The sort of behavior that you as a parent and your partner as the parent, your children are going to imitate that. So that’s why I think it’s very important if you want to have kids, to level up yourself as a woman. So that if you have unresolved trauma from childhood, going to therapy gets your own issues sorted out, so that you yourself as a woman can be the best possible parent and to make sure that you are having them with the best possible men who are going to model healthy relationship dynamics for your kids.”
So ladies, if you’re in a funk and feeling like you are asking for too much, I am here to tell you that you are not. Be sure to check out this community, get familiar with the content, and connect with a community of women who care and support the betterment of yourself as a woman, and your love life.
“The Female Dating Strategy” is located on reddit, a podcast on spotify, patreon, and their website, www.thefemaledatingstrategy.com
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Twitter: @FemDatStrat IG: @_thefemaledatingstrategy
“Understand that our entire brand is talking to real women, looking at the research, and coming up with strategies to help women to really level up their life.” – Reaux
“Be the best possible version of yourself, then the love will come”. – Lillith
Don’t be afraid to advocate for what you want. If something isn’t meeting your needs you don’t have to think that this is the best that you can get. Because it isn’t”. – Savannah