Labor of Love is an unintentionally successful lampooning of the traditional project of procreative heterosexual marriage

The Muse

"The best thing that can be said about Labor of Love is that it’s mildly refreshing to see a woman talk about practical considerations around reproduction during a first date without it being framed as scary, desperate, or unattractive," says Tracy Clark-Flory of Fox's new dating reality show. "The show is sympathetic to the ways that biology constrains cisgender, heterosexual women’s reproductive wishes....Needless to say, that sympathy does not lead to a critical examination of norms around love, marriage, and baby-making. (I mean, lol, of course not.) We learn that (Kristy) Katzmann has frozen her eggs and will go it alone if she doesn’t find a partner, but there is no discussion of the lack of structural support that can make single motherhood a difficult choice. (Lol, again.) Instead, the series props up old patriarchal values, re-emphasizing women’s dependency on men for support and protection. (That f*cking fake bear!) The show may seem an inevitable outcome of the ratcheting up of reality TV stakes, but Labor of Love feels less an indictment of dating shows than popular expectations around love. I’ve never seen such an unintentionally successful lampooning of the traditional project of procreative heterosexual marriage. It simply places that project in its starkest, no-time-to-f*ck-around terms: A woman sets out to find love, friendship, and chemistry with one man who is stable, mature, replete with parenting skills, and ready to have kids, all within the timetabled constraints of reproductive biology? That’s nuts."