Here’s my review of Moira Weigel’s Labor of Love for The Washington Post

Let’s Talk About Dating–Seriously

It’s a sad truth: No matter how much progress women have made in the workplace — and it’s still pretty limited — the message about our romantic prospects remains stubbornly mired in the past.

“I belong to a generation that grew up hearing that girls could do everything,” Moira Weigel writes in her fascinating social history “Labor of Love.” And yet Weigel, who is in her early 30s, contends that women are still judged in large part on their ability to secure romantic partnerships. “Since we were children,” she writes of herself and her friends, “we had heard that romantic love would be the most important thing that ever happened to us. Love was like the final grade: Whatever else we accomplished would be meaningless without it.”

Despite these monumental stakes, she notes, love and romance — the ways humans begin their most intimate relationships — are still dismissed as silly girl stuff, fodder for pink-covered books and scented fashion magazines.

The lack of serious conversation about dating has left Weigel with rich territory to explore, and she makes excellent use of it. MORE