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"Through her incisive analysis of compelling interviews, Ellen Lamont shows how and why contemporary middle-class dating practices unwittingly undermine the efforts of new generations to build egalitarian partnerships. This original account demonstrates just how integral symbolic courtship rituals are to understanding why gender inequality persists and how it can be dismantled. The Mating Game not only breaks new ground in the study of romantic relationships but also adds an important new voice to debates about the nature, extent, and consequences of the gender revolution."—Kathleen Gerson, author of The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age in a New Era of Gender, Work, and Family
"Ellen Lamont paints a sobering portrait of conventional coupling that contrasts with the dazzling display of creativity from the queer folk among us. Make no mistake: The goal of intimate equality is here, if we want it; and it is queer, if we’ll have it."—Lisa Wade, author of American Hookup: The New Culture of Sex on Campus
"This book is a must-read for those trying to understand the new rules for modern romance. It sheds a bright light on how today’s dating and mating game differs from courtship in the past—and the surprising ways it remains stubbornly resistant to change."—Sharon Sassler, coauthor of Cohabitation Nation: Gender, Class, and the Remaking of Relationships
"Most Americans now want egalitarian marriages, but heterosexuals still conduct their dating and courting along gender-stereotyped lines that, as Lamont shows, undermine the collaborative interdependence that now predicts the most satisfying long-term relationships. Whatever your sexual orientation, read this book before your next date."—Stephanie Coontz, author of A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s
List of contents
Acknowledgments
1. The Puzzling Persistence of Gendered Dating
2. The Quest for Egalitarian Love
3. New Goals, Old Scripts: Heterosexual Women Caught
between Tradition and Equality
4. A Few Good (Heterosexual) Men: Inequality Disguised
as Romance
5. Queering Courtship: LGBQ People Reimagine
Relationships
6. The More Things Change . . .
7. Dated Dating and the Stalled Gender Revolution
Appendix 1: Summary of Interview Respondents
Appendix 2: Interview Guide
Notes
References
Index
Summary
Despite enormous changes in patterns of dating and courtship in twenty-first-century America, contemporary understandings of romance and intimacy remain firmly rooted in age-old assumptions of gender difference. These tenacious beliefs now vie with cultural messages of gender equality that stress independence, self-development, and egalitarian practices in public and private life.
Through interviews with heterosexual and LGBTQ individuals, Ellen Lamont’s The Mating Game explores how people with diverse sexualities and gender identities date, form romantic relationships, and make decisions about future commitments as they negotiate uncertain terrain fraught with competing messages about gender, sexuality, and intimacy.
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"Lamont’s well-designed empirical project and insightful theoretical analysis advance our conversations about the state of the gender revolution in the 21st century."
