Buzz kill: how men's rights activists stopped Bumble putting women first

In the face of thousands of legal challenges alleging discrimination and a slew of layoffs, not even the return of its billionaire founder has turned things around for the girlboss of dating apps, Patricia Clarke writes

- Patricia Clarke

In April 2024, Bumble announced a quiet but consequential change to its core product: women no longer had to be the ones to start conversations on the dating app.

For a decade, “Make the first move” had been the brand’s motto, promising to put women in control of who they spoke to, reduce harassment and give them a sense of agency in the overwhelming deluge of online dating.

Publicly the company framed the shift as a response to user fatigue. Women were feeling “exhaustion with the current online dating experience”, its then chief executive, Lidiane Jones, said, adding that the update was about giving users “more choice”.

Privately, a different story was playing out. Three people with direct knowledge of internal discussions say the change was driven by mounting legal pressure from men’s rights activists and law firms in the US. Between June and August 2023 alone, Bumble received more than 20,000 legal threats alleging that the app discriminated against men by not allowing them to make the first move.

Today the company is still battling a lawsuit arguing that Bumble’s true motive has “always been about exploiting sexual stereotypes for profit”. The case was brought by Alfred Rava, a lawyer hailed as “man of the decade” on Reddit’s MensRights forum. He has filed hundreds of lawsuits challenging gender-based policies and promotions in California, including ladies’ nights at bars and women-only networking events. Filed in 2024, his Bumble lawsuit argues that it “portrays females as perpetual victims needing special emotional and psychological protection”, and stereotypes men as “rude, sexually-forward ogres”. Bumble has moved to dismiss the case.