ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the contradictions between the ideals that rural-to-urban migrant male workers hold about ‘true men’ and the difficulties they face in fulfilling these gendered ideals. The research finds that the elements constituting a ‘true man’ include a financially secure job and warm and healthy family relationships, conforming to heteronormative notions of romance and commitment. The chapter also identifies the obstacles preventing these men from realizing such ideals, including the large surplus of unmarried men in rural areas, their economically precarious status and their lack of cultural capital which would make them desirable to women.
