I think we are the first feminist or first attempt at a feminist

In an age when marketplaces moved from stone squares to glowing screens, a young builder spoke and named her craft: “I think we are the first feminist or first attempt at a feminist dating app.” Thus declared Whitney Wolfe Herd, and her words rang like a bell across the halls of courtship. Hear the claim beneath the claim: that design itself is law, and law can be written so that agency, dignity, and consent stand at the gate before desire rushes in. To call a product feminist is to bind it to an ethic—one that measures success not by volume of matches, but by the weight of respect carried in every exchange.

What, then, is a feminist dating app in the marrow of the phrase? It is a civic square built so that power is not seized by the loudest, but distributed by rule; where women message first in heterosexual pairings, where consent is coded not as a courtesy but as a constraint, and where safety is not a banner but a framework. The levers of the machine—timeouts, reporting, photo verification, anti-harassment walls—are not ornaments; they are the city’s walls and watchtowers. Such a place teaches: affection must live within boundaries, and boundaries are part of affection’s beauty.

Consider the origin of this ethos. The builder had walked earlier roads and knew their stones; she had seen how digital fields, untended, grow thorns. The answer was not to leave the field, but to cultivate it—to inscribe design choices that tilt the terrain toward equality. In this telling, product design becomes a quiet revolution, where toggles are treaties and prompts are constitutions. The first attempt is not hubris; it is a lantern raised against the old night, an admission that perfection is distant, but direction matters.

Let us place this saying beside a story from long ago, when the voices of women first sang of love in their own key. In Occitania, in the twelfth century, there were the trobairitz—women troubadours who dared to craft and carry the grammar of desire. They wrote the opening line; they set the terms of the dialogue. Though their courts were cloth and candle rather than code and pixel, their gesture is kin to this app: a world where the woman’s voice initiates, and initiation reshapes the dance itself. From castle hall to chat interface, the lesson endures: who speaks first directs the river’s bend.

Take also a modern tale, not of princes but of passwords. Yara, newly moved to a great city, downloaded the bright-hued app and felt the old dread gather—until she noticed its covenant. Matches would sleep unless she woke them; silence would be honored as silence. In that small architecture, she felt the spine straighten. She sent a first message when she wished, declined when she wished, and used the guardrails when she must. The dates that followed were not all sweet, but they were different: the tone set by design yielded a corridor of clearer air. One winter’s evening, after a gentle conversation that went nowhere yet left her whole, she realized the quiet miracle: the platform had not found her destiny; it had restored her agency.

What, then, shall we learn and teach? That technology is not neutral river but canal—carved, gated, aimed. To build a feminist anything—dating app, school, policy, marketplace—is to braid consent, safety, and equity into the blueprint, not drizzle them after the roof is raised. It is to measure success in reduced harm as fiercely as in increased use; to value the well-being of the least powerful as the truest key metric. The boast “first attempt” is a vow: we will attempt again, and again, until the shape of our tools fits the shape of our values.

Now, let the counsel be plain as bread and strong as tea. If you are a maker: encode consent by default, surface safety features without shame, and publish your rules where all can see. Audit your algorithms for bias; reward kindness as you reward engagement. If you are a leader: invest in moderation like you invest in marketing; count reports resolved with the same pride you count downloads. If you are a seeker: practice agency with grace—send the first word when you wish, withdraw when you must, honor “no” as sacred. And if you are a culture: teach the young that romance without respect is merely risk in a fine cloak. Do this, and the marketplace of hearts will grow more luminous, until even the smallest message carries the dignity of a standard borne high.