Women are taking the lead on Tinder, says India head Taru Kapoor

It’s probably a common notion that women get more attention than men even on dating platforms. But turns out women in India are taking the lead on Tinder.

One would naturally think that men would make the first move in online dating but it turns out it’s the opposite, at least on Tinder. It’s also one of the major reasons why Tinder grew so fast and popular in India.

“From my personal experience having grown up in a country like India, women in particular have always had to deal with unsolicited attention online or offline. The reason Tinder grew in India for the first time by itself in a country where online dating was still very nascent in 2014 is because women finally had a space where they had a private device,” Taru Kapoor, Tinder India head told Hindustan Times.

“You have a platform to be yourself to express the desire to reach out to somebody to connect and to have a conversation and to figure out whether or not you are interested in pursuing a relationship with a person and are you compatible or not from the safety of your home or behind your screen. And for whatever reason you do not want to pursue a conversation you can unmatch immediately and that person cannot reach out to you,” Kapoor added.

She also highlighted Tinder’s key features that focus on women having full control over whom they wanted to meet and go for dates and also immediate action to not pursue them anymore.

“These are the core features because of which women adopted our platform and have always been more engaged than men on our platform from day one,” Taru said.

Tinder in 2018 launched ‘My Move’, a feature that lets women take control of their matches by letting them send the first message. But this hasn’t necessarily changed any user activity on Tinder as engagement has been higher from women since day one.

Tinder’s growth in India can also be attributed to its female users who finally had a ‘safe’ platform to date. Women are also known to spend more time on Tinder and send more super likes. Taru also mentioned that the company receives more feedback from its female users when it comes to their experiences.

“Anecdotally, when they come back, meet people and they have relationships. When we hear from their stories we hear a lot more females reaching back to use share their experiences sharing their stories.”