Your textbook states that gendered orientations influence four dimensions of long-term love relationships: modes of expressing care, needs for autonomy and connection, responsibility for relational maintenance, and power. Discuss how heterosexual couples may differ from same-sex couples on two of the four dimensions.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

ANS: Gendered Modes of Expressing Affection: Heterosexual couples who follow traditional gender patterns may encounter misunderstanding around expressing affection in that the woman may express care through talk whereas the man may express care through doing things for his partner. Gay and lesbian couples are less likely to face such misunderstandings because they share perspectives on how to communicate affection. In lesbian couples, partners are mutually attentive to nurturing and emotional openness. This may explain why lesbians report greater satisfaction with their relationships than either gay men or heterosexual couples.

Gendered Preferences for Autonomy and Connection: Heterosexual couples who follow traditional gender patterns may experience tension around preferences for autonomy and connection. Masculine people are socialized to seek out autonomy and feminine people are socialized to seek out connection. Therefore, a masculine-oriented man may feel suffocated by a feminine-oriented woman’s desire for connection; similarly, a feminine woman may be hurt by a masculine man’s desire for space and independence. Although the textbook doesn’t specifically address lesbian and gay relationships along this dimension, it makes sense that partners in same- sex relationships would be more likely to have been socialized along similar gender lines and therefore share preferences for autonomy and connection.

Gendered Responsibility for Relational Health: In lesbian couples, both partners typically have learned feminine ways of thinking and acting; as such, they are likely to be sensitive to interpersonal dynamics and interested in working through relationship problems. As such, lesbian partnerships are marked by shared responsibility for the health of the relationship. In heterosexual couples, on the other hand, women tend to do most of the relationship maintenance work; this is both a burden to the woman and may lead to difficulties in the relationship in that the woman may be perceived as a “nag” whereas the man may not recognize a problem exists until it is quite severe.

Gendered power dynamics: In heterosexual relationships where partners follow traditional gender scripts, men typically have more power than women. One outcome of this is that women typically work a “second shift,” engaging in the bulk of the domestic labor. In the past this power imbalance was compounded by the fact that men typically earned the entire or majority of the household income. Today, in the majority of heterosexual couples, both women and men work for wages; however, women continue to be responsible for most of the household work.
Power imbalances between heterosexual partners also play out in terms of how each partner approaches conflict. Men tend to use more unilateral strategies when faced with conflict whereas women are more likely to defer or compromise. Finally, gendered power dynamics are displayed through the use of violence in some heterosexual couples; abusers tend to be more masculine and less feminine in their gender orientation than their partners. The problems that stem from assumptions about male power are not prominent in lesbian relationships; however, gay male relationships can be marked by competition over status and dominance.