‘Chick Crack’: Self-Esteem, Science and Women’s Dating Advice

This article is a survey of the most popular dating advice books written for women, as of 2016 and sold on Amazon. Drawing upon previous surveys (namely Hollander 2011; King 2018), my research shows how advice manuals overwhelming emphasise self-esteem as a tool to help women attract and maintain relationships with men. In doing so they fall into three main categories: firstly, ‘the rules’ approach, which is typified by the Fein and Schneider (1995) book of the same name, suggests that women should control their partners by adopting particular rules of communication. The second category is less proscriptive, and appeals to the paternal ‘wisdom’ of its male authors. Dr. Phil’s books are a good example of this genre, and seek to boost women’s self-esteem by selectively drawing upon ‘folksy’ wisdom about how men and women should ideally interact. Whist these two categories are the most popular, a third type of book is perhaps more useful – as it relies more on empirical evidence. This perspective can be seen in Rachel Greenwald’s Have Him at Hello (2010), a book which draws on interview research with men about dating. Finally, in appraising these sources, the article considers the limitations of self-esteem as a means of understanding relationships, and the impact of third-wave feminism on dating advice more generally.