I don’t want to be a “provider man” or play by traditional gender roles at all

I (M26, straight) have been single for a while. In all of my friends’ relationships, the man pays for just about everything. I’d like to try getting back into the dating scene, but that is the part that I really do not want to do. I have a decent job, but it just doesn’t feel right that I should always pay just because I’m a man.

My sisters, like me, are both very progressive/left-leaning, and even they have continually defended the “girls don’t pay” idea. They tried explaining their reasoning to me, but none of their arguments held up. When I pointed that out, their argument switched to “it’s just tradition, so deal with it.”

Look, in a way, I get it. Women’s rights have come a long way, and yet we still as a culture expect women to do an unfair amount of domestic labor. Child rearing, homemaking, cooking, cleaning, and giving up their careers for it all. With all that in mind, it sounds only fair that men should provide monetarily for their wives and girlfriends. But this doesn’t apply to my situation.

I’m childfree, and hope to one day marry a woman who wants to live the DINK life with me. I don’t see why we couldn’t both have our own careers, and divide up the homemaking work evenly. I don’t want a partnership where we’re both constrained by gender-based expectations. I don’t want to live that small, and I don’t want to be with a woman who does either.

Maybe I’ll know I’ve found the one when she offers to pay for a date.