Women's only dating app, Lulu, is causing a stir.
Photo / Thinkstock
Women's only dating app, Lulu, is causing a stir.
Photo / Thinkstock
It's the mobile phone app for women that gives the men they have dated marks out of ten.
And since launching in Britain, the Lulu dating app - blamed for objectifying millions of men in America - has already attracted an estimated 20,000 users.
The app allows women to fill in anonymously an online survey on former boyfriends and male acquaintances on Facebook. The information can then be used by other women to decide if they want to date a prospective boyfriend - or not.
The scoring system gives a final mark out of 10 for each named and identified male. There is no reciprocal arrangement for men to score or judge women.
An online petition called for Lulu to be outlawed on the grounds that men's privacy was being violated while a 28-year-old Brazilian academic even brought a lawsuit over his negative rating.
But Lulu's founder and chief executive Alexandra Chong, who got married two weeks ago to a British photographer, is having none of it. Her app, she insists, is not about turning the tables on men but simply giving women as much information as possible before they embark on a date.
"We created Lulu for women to be smarter in a world where more and more of them are meeting men on the internet," said Ms Chong, 33. "Most dating apps exist for people to put up their pictures.
"They are all based on looks. But most women don't date like that. We care about more than just whether a man is hot or not."
The idea was dreamed up in London while Ms Chong, a Canadian with Jamaican roots, was studying here. She went back to the US to launch the product and has seen membership boom. Lulu now boasts five million women and a million men signed up in America alone.
"It has been two years since we launched in the US and we have really learned a lot about building this product up," said Ms Chong. "I don't think we have turned the tables on men. That was certainly never the intention."
Ms Chong, who divides her time between London and New York, denies her dating app belittles men. "I don't see this as so-called objectifying them," she said.
Rather she insists Lulu simply provides women with better information, making the dating process safer.
Women's only dating app Lulu let's you sus out your crush.
Photo / Lulu
Along with the scoring system - men currently average 7.5 out of 10 - women can also pick from pithy epithets to describe their former partner, from a number of options that include "GoodChap", "Footballers'Legs", "CanFixALeak" and other ruder choices.
Women are given multiple choice questions to which they can give answers ranging from one star to five, on a range of subjects including manners, ambition, looks, commitment and even sexual performance. But there have been complaints about the app. An online petition entitled "Shut Down Lulu" called for Apple to stop making it available on its online store.
Calling on women to sign the petition, it stated: "So, stand with your fellow men, and protect your integrity, your identity and your privacy and sign this petition so that we can get this terrible App taken down for good."
The petition attracted about 500 supporters but failed in its goal. Ms Chong pointed out that men can take themselves off the app if they don't like their reviews.
Felippo de Almeida Scolari, from Sao Paulo, in Brazil, was so unimpressed with his rating that he began legal action. The law academic had been reviewed, along with such hashtag comments as "#Doesn'tCallTheNextDay", "#ShouldComeWithAWarning" and "#CheaperThanBreadandButter".
"I was disgusted because I didn't authorise my details to be used by this app," Mr Scolari said. The case, according to Lulu, was subsequently thrown out of court.
