Description
Book SynopsisThe data behind a distinct form of racism in online dating. The Dating Divide is the first comprehensive look at digital-sexual racism,a distinct form of racism that is mediated and amplified through the impersonal and anonymous context of online dating. Drawing on large-scalebehavioral data from a mainstream dating website, extensive archival research, and more than seventy-fivein-depth interviews with daters of diverse racial backgrounds and sexual identities, Curington, Lundquist, and Lin illustrate how the seemingly open space of the internet interacts with theloss of social inhibition in cyberspace contexts, fostering openly expressed forms of sexual racism that arerarely exposed in face-to-face encounters.The Dating Divide is a fascinating look at how a contemporary conflux of individualization, consumerism, and the proliferation of digital technologies hasgiven rise to a unique form of gendered racism in the era of swiping rightor left. The internet is often heralded as an e
Trade Review"
The Dating Divide claims that online dating creates a sort of apartheid, where individuals can filter, reject or simply ignore certain groups. . . . This original, thought-provoking, engaging book is a must-read for anyone interested in exploring how racism seeps into every area of our lives." * Times Higher Education *
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The Dating Divide adds historical background and in-depth interviews to explain where our dating biases come from
. . . . A useful and thoughtful contribution to the literature, and well worth reading." * Social Forces *
“The Dating Divide is a unique study of online dating, an area not readily studied but significant to modern society. . . . The role of race in these interactions is an important area of examination and will no doubt be increasingly important. . . . Highly recommended.”
* CHOICE *
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The Dating Divide makes strong empirical interventions…[that] make this text quite useful for teaching about structural racism and its embeddedness in our personal lives in an accessible way." * American Journal of Sociology *
Table of ContentsList of Tables and Figures
Introduction: Dear Tinder, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
1. Where Hate Trumps Love: The Birth and Legacy of Antimiscegenation in the United States
2. From the Back Porch to the Computer Screen: The Rise of Choice in Courtship
3. New Rules? Gendered Online Engagement
4. A Privilege Endures: Dating While White in the Era of Online Dating
5. The Unique Disadvantage: Dating While Black
6. The Asian Experience: Resistance and Complicity
7. "Hey, You’re Latin. Do You Like to Dance?": The Privilege and Disadvantage of Latino/a Daters
8. Postracial Multiracialism: A Challenge to the White Racial Frame?
Conclusion: Abolishing the Dating Divide
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Data and Methods
Interviews
Notes
Bibliography
Index
