90 Day Fiance, Passport Bros and International Dating
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This presentation examines the intersecting worlds of the Passport Bros movement, the reality television franchise 90 Day Fiancé, and the international dating industry to interrogate how contemporary masculinity is negotiated through transnational intimacy. Drawing from twelve years of fieldwork conducted for Economies of Gender: Masculinity, "Mail Order Brides," and Women's Labor, Meszaros will argue that these seemingly disparate trends share a common logic: men seeking to resolve perceived crises in Western gender relations by pursuing relationships in "intimate frontiers"—Ukraine, Colombia, the Philippines, and beyond. Meszaros will examine the importance of womens' labor in definining masculinity and discuss the economic influences behind our understandings of gender.
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