Hillary Clinton Has Thoughts On Who Should Pay for the First Date

In honor of Equal Pay Day on Tuesday, Hillary Clinton participated in a panel on compensation equality and sexism in the workplace sponsored by Glassdoor. She was joined by other equal-pay advocates, like U.S. women’s soccer player Megan Rapinoe and Make It Work Campaign cofounder Tracy Sturdivant. After the event, Cosmopolitan.com spoke to Clinton on the phone about her own experiences with equal pay…and dating. During the conversation, they asked the presidential candidate to weigh in on the age-old question: Who should pay on a first date?

“Look, I think splitting the cost on a date has to be evaluated on a kind of case-by-case basis,” said Clinton. “You know, many years ago I remember doing that, and I know a lot of young people who even today do because they kind of consider more casual dates, group dates, to be ones where everybody pays their fair share, but I think you also have to be alert to the feelings of the person that you are dating. If it’s important to that person to either split in the beginning of the relationship, or for one or the other of you to pay for whatever combination of reasons, you know, you just have to evaluate that and take it into account. So I don’t think there is a hard-and-fast rule, at least that I have ever seen followed in every instance.”

On the topic of the pay gap, Clinton said she’s a fan of transparency: “I, at the very beginning of my career, did not know where I stood in terms of pay, but as I got more experience and more confidence about my work, then I felt much more free to ask and so I did to find out where I stood.”

Read more: Women May Ask For Less Money Than Men Do

Clinton says that, in addition to working against pay inequality, she also wants to do her part to correct unequal representation in government positions. If she ends up winning the election, she says her Cabinet will include more women. “That is certainly my goal,” she said. “A very diverse Cabinet representing the talents and experience of the entire country. And since we are a 50-50 country, I would aim to have a 50-50 Cabinet.”