Equal partners online?: German matchmaking web sites and trafficking in women

• Autores: Riitta Vartti
• Localización: Crossing borders and shifting boundaries / coord. por Mirjana Morokvasic, Umut Erel, Kyoko Shinozaki, Vol. 1, 2003 (Gender on the Move), ISBN 978-3-8100-3493-9, págs. 177-206
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This chapter reports on a study of Germany-based matchmaking agencies operating on the Internet, investigating how they are organized and how they advertise their commodities. Matchmaking has rapidly grown into a big international business that is now operating on the Internet. This has engendered media debate in different countries regarding the sexual behavior of its users, consequences of the resulting marriages, and on successful international policy for regulating the related migration. Being a new phenomenon, matchmaking on the Internet has largely remained unresearched until very recently. This analysis is a preliminary attempt to address online introduction services in one industrialized western country, Germany. It examines the size and extent of the German computer dating business. One goal is to explore regional manifestations of the trade. For example, which are the primary sending and receiving countries? The chapter also highlights features typical for the advertising on these web sites, keeping in mind gender, ethnic, and race aspects. Finally, it is examined whether matchmaking agencies provide equal opportunities to different kinds of people in this transaction, and whether such services have an impact on gender and ethnic equality.