Abstract
Firmly rooted in the study of gender, masculinities, sexualities, and culture, Ellen Lamont’s The Mating Game: How Gender Still Shapes How We Date provides an innovative perspective on the link between modern dating and a stalled gender revolution. Based on 105 in-depth interviews with college-educated heterosexual (62%), and LGBQ (38%) young adults about courtship, Lamont investigates how beliefs in gender difference persist and undermine modern goals of equality. Lamont interviews heterosexual women (Ch 3), heterosexual men (Ch 4), and LGBQ individuals (Ch 5) about their experiences, motivations, and expectations of courtship. She finds that while on the surface, heterosexual and LGBQ couples seek egalitarian partnerships, cultural contradictions rooted in benevolent sexism, choice-rhetoric, and out-of-date gendered scripts make it much more difficult for heterosexual couples to achieve than their LGBQ counterparts.
Lamont’s study uncovers that heterosexual women experience a unique type of pressure to find success in public and private spheres while utilizing separate, often conflicting cultural scripts for each. In response, women tend to separate gendered courtship from the broader topic of gender inequality. The women in this study not only feel bound to gendered dating scripts, they learn to accept them as inevitable parts of seeking commitment. Heterosexual women, especially those seeking a husband and kids, often face social sanctions when deviating from gender norms. Respondents explain that while breaking gender norms may progress equality, it may also cause unwanted strain. Instead, many of the women find creative ways to leverage power away from the men they date. Lamont uncovers that while gender equality in relationships has undoubtedly improved, “tepid feminism” (p. 3) has taken hold as women utilize choice-rhetoric and individualism to dissociate gendered traditions of courtship from their personal measures of equality.
Though they rationalize their behaviors differently, heterosexual men in the study express a similar disconnect between ideals of gender equity and behaviors within intimate relationships. In most cases, these men attempt to utilize a progressive expression of masculinity that draws on benevolent sexism and gendered expectations to position and justify themselves as loving caregivers. The men actively distance themselves from stereotypically dominant and promiscuous men in the hope to redefine themselves as advocates for gender equality. However, most heterosexual men reveal clearly defined double standards regarding the importance of their partner’s sexual history, paying for dates, and changing surnames. These men express difficulty navigating what they see as changing expectations around their role as men in relationships. In response, these men frame their commitment to traditional courtship and performance of masculinity as a response to the expectations of women, minimizing their accountability when inequality occurs.
While heterosexual respondents often attempt to negotiate and rationalize aspects of gendered scripts, Lamont’s LGBQ respondents tend to actively reject them. The majority of Lamont’s LGBQ respondents are queer, people of color with higher socioeconomic variation than the heterosexual sample. Respondents share the complicated journey of first positioning themselves within society and then finding a partner willing to carve out space with them. In this chapter, Lamont and her respondents interrogate traditional expectations around masculinity and femininity. Queer identity, as Lamont presents it, is one of opportunity; in response to a lack of cultural support and mainstream scripts for intimate relationships, LGBQ people work to queer traditional scripts or in many cases reimagine courtship altogether. Often utilizing local politics and culture to subvert mainstream, heteronormative expectations of romance, love, and family, community members establish their queerness as a catalyst for long-lasting social change.
Ellen Lamont’s The Mating Game is an ambitious project that strategically investigates views held by three distinct groups, each navigating complex social structures and cultural narratives around romantic courtship. Lamont offers a refreshing and strong framework to analyze courtship on an individual, group, and societal level. It is a strong addition to growing scholarship on young adults as well as the possible application of queerness in mainstream cultural reform. Lamont shows that those who share similar educational backgrounds and socioeconomic status tend to adopt similar cultural scripts, and in so doing, she paves the way for further analysis of connections between identity and the functionality of such scripts. She shows that even amid large cultural shifts toward egalitarian principles, the gender revolution has stalled in intimate relationships, where traditional courtship practices continue to reinforce gender difference and inequality. The distinct way Lamont positions her respondents’ lived experience in relation to their intentions uncovers the possibility of a feedback loop in which narratives of gender difference reinforced during relationships affect other areas of life. Her text serves as an invitation for students and scholars alike to examine these cultural contradictions and narratives closely in hopes of bringing about substantial cultural and policy-based change.