Longwood University



Krista Spivey and Falynn KellyCommunication ResearchFinal ProspectusDecember 4, 2015BALANCING GENDER ROLES IN ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPSINTRODUCTIONThis study will primarily focus on romantic relationships in the generation X and baby boomer generations. These generations were raised with traditional gender roles but now society is in the midst of a transition to different roles. We want to study how couples negotiate the new and old expectations of gender roles within their romantic relationships. This study is important because it will help us better our understanding of how gender roles can affect a romantic relationship. By having this better understanding couples can have healthier and more successful relationships. For example: if a man in a heterosexual relationship decides he wants to be the primary caregiver for his family, so that his wife furthers her career, couples should know how to handle this change, and be able to successfully work through it. Gender roles within couples are changing, so it’s important to know how to adapt to them. It is especially important now that gay marriage is legal in contemporary society, because those couples will not have any of the traditional gender roles that most couples usually experience. We believe this is a topic to be concerned about because equality is a topic that is constantly discussed, and has been for centuries. Since the Women’s Rights Movement started in the mid 1800’s, there has been confusion that women should have more rights than men. Therefor, the purpose of this study will be to describe how hetero and homosexual romantic couples perceptions of gender roles influence interactions about working inside and outside the home.DEFINING GENDER ROLESIn order to continue research, it is important to define what exactly gender roles are. According to Wood (2011), gender roles involve “outward expressions of what society considers masculine or feminine. We demonstrate gender roles by how we speak, dress, style our hair, and so forth,” She also states that “what gender means and how we express it depends on a society’s values, beliefs, and preferred ways of organizing collective life,” (p. 21). This study will focus primarily on the gender roles pertaining to shared tasks, and who works inside the home, or outside. Although gender roles pertain to a large public, this study focuses on just work life. According to Davis (2015) since women’s equality began to emerge in the U.S. they have achieved more than men in things such as education, and earned higher positions.The article further states that divorce rates are falling because more couples are being supportive of gender equality in relationships (Davis, 2015). A fairly recent article by, Gender Roles in Media by Allison Lantagne, shed some light about how our perception of gender roles can be influenced through advertisements or other forms of media. Lantagne (2014) mentioned that the media strongly influences gender roles. For example a commonly used plot is to have only one female character create sexual tension between all male characters on a television show. She also mentions that commercials for children’s toys are clearly gendered through what background music is playing and whether a boy or a girl is playing with the toy. This popular press article is relevant to our research because it shows us that gender roles are stressed at a young age and television shows give people a false sense of how people act in the real world. An interesting blog article by Jill Smokler, The Key to Achieving Work-Life Balance for Parents? Accepting It’s a Myth, told parents that it’s alright if they aren’t able to do everything by themselves. Smokler (2015) advises parents to set boundaries by setting aside time for both work and family, build a community by having friends or neighbors help you out from time to time, and to over-communicate with the people in your life; whether it be your family or coworkers. Smokler believes that if you can follow these guidelines your work and family life will have a better balance. This article is just one of many that are encouraging couples to break out of the traditional gender roles they have followed in order to have a more successful and satisfying relationship.An interesting perspective of this topic is to look at it from the homosexual point of view. An article titled Applying Gender Roles to Same Sex Couples by John Ersing says that from a Diversity Training Group report that “today, 95% of family financial decisions are made by women,” and that “a 2010 Pew poll shows that 72% of women and men ages 18-29 that the best marriage is one in which husband and wife both work and take care of the house,” (Ersing, 2015). The author also goes on to say that having the freedom to make the choices that you want in your life, instead of conforming to these ‘roles’ can create a better chance of happiness in a relationship. It’s also been said that women will soon be taking over the breadwinning role. According to Lois Collins, the Women’s Bureau predicted that by 2018 women would account for a most of America’s job growth (Collins, 2015). The article goes on to say that this has almost hurt marriages a bit, because it doesn’t solve the gender roles, it just switches them. The article concludes that it is important to have more of a balance between work life and home life in a romantic relationship. THEORETICAL GROUNDINGThe theory chosen for this study is the social construction of gender. According the Herbert Blumer, social construction of gender is the way “humans act toward people or things on the basis of the meanings they assign to those people or things”, (Griffin, 2009). It basically means that gender roles are created by our culture and society. For example: in a relationship the male is generally seen as the financial provider for his family, while the female is seen as the homemaker or main care taker. As previously stated, gender roles are socially constructed into two different categories: masculinity and femininity. This theory relates to our topic because we are researching if the breaking of the main provider gender roles in the baby boomer and generation x generations would improve, or damage a romantic relationship. Men and women are put into set gendered roles in their day-to-day lives by society. Society tells men they need more powerful jobs, such as a CEO or business man, and tells women they need to have jobs that cater to their care taking role such as teaching, retail, or a secretary position.GENDER ROLES IN THE MEDIA AND RELATIONSHIP SATISFACTIONAdvertisements that Promote Gender RolesPamela Morris conducted a content analysis titled Gender in Print Advertisements: A Snapshot of Representations from Around the World that focused on a global content analysis of magazine advertisements. He gathered these advertisements from 108 countries in 48 different languages. He then examined these advertisements with images of both men and women and was able to find they contained stereotypical gender portrayals. Morris (2006) stated that most countries in their advertisements displayed women in domestic situations and men mainly working environments. Men were also shown participating in leisurely activities while women were primarily shown modeling products. This relates to our topic because it is showing how men and women are put into certain roles by society and these roles carry into how people act in their relationships. If they are constantly seeing their gender carrying out certain tasks they are going to assume that they’re supposed to be doing the same. This ends up bringing certain set gender roles into relationships. Another study conducted by Peters, Holmgreen, and Oswald (2015) focused on people’s reactions to certain advertisements that involved gender-based humor towards women. The advertisement was for trouser care and the instructions read “Give it to your woman, it’s her job.” 68.5% of online commentators somewhat agreed with using this statement and less than 8% disagreed with using it. The comments about the advertisement ranged from humorous to hostile towards both men and women. Both of these studies are important to our research because it shows us just how easily advertisements can create and enforce certain gender related stereotypes. Giving in to the messages these advertisements send could promote gender roles, which could cause people to want these roles followed in their own relationships. Therefore, creating possible problems and a decrease in relationship satisfaction. Gender Roles in Romantic Relationships and the Factors that Contribute to Relationship SatisfactionBaucom, McFarland, & Christensen (2010) found that women are more demanding than men, no matter the couple type (heterosexual or homosexual). In this instance, the woman is demanding a more personal talk, while a man is withdrawing by not wanting to disclose his personal feelings. Due to this factor, a homosexual relationship would be significantly different compared to a heterosexual relationship. Demand in any romantic relationship (heterosexual or homosexual) is not always a good thing. Higher levels of demand were found to be associated with lower levels of relationship satisfaction within the study. Some people would associate demand with higher levels of self-insecurity. These insecurities can irritate a romantic partner, and eventually they will have enough. Haas & Stafford (2005) mention that independent heterosexual couples have a harder time staying together due to their independent nature, while homosexual couples don’t have as much of a societal role. In our research, we have found that homosexual couples don’t have as much of an issue with gender stereotypes when it comes to who has a career and who helps out at home. These types of couples don’t have an issue with this because they are not the typical couple. For example, if a heterosexual couple went out on a date to dinner it would be traditional for the man to take care of the bill. This tradition doesn’t apply to homosexual couples because they aren’t confined to these typical gender roles. A study done by Caughlin, and Huston (2006) that studied demand and withdraw patterns in in marital relationships found that neuroticism positively affected demand withdraw patterns, while agreeableness negatively affected demand withdraw patterns. The article states in the beginning that “wives seek emotional intimacy more than their husbands,” and that “husbands are more likely than wives to experience conflict as emotionally and/or physiologically unpleasant,” (p. 13). It also goes on to say that because of men’s power status in North American cultures, when issues arise, they usually resolve in the husband’s favor over the wives. This article basically declares that society still thinks of men in higher power. Balancing these gender roles, and having both husband and wife feel more in power could eliminate these higher demand/withdraw patterns. One study that was found focused on how couples , whether heterosexual, or homosexual, were displayed on popular television shows and also concentrated on if homosexual couples and heterosexual couples are placed in their stereotypical gender roles in popular television shows (Ivory, Gibson, & Ivory, 2009). It was found that men acted more dominant in scenes of heterosexual couples, and most same sex couples had a balance of assertiveness, and passiveness. This study further explains the gender role phenomena that they are learned overtime. These popular television shows have heterosexual couples with men being the more dominant ones, and women being the typical nurturing, passive stereotype. The media has a huge influence on today’s society, and as one can see, even affects our romantic relationships. Couples are watching these popular television shows and believe that this is how they should act as a couple. Through the further examination of gender roles in romantic relationships and factors that contribute to relationship satisfaction, we have learned that higher levels of demand withdraw patterns can be detrimental to a relationship, and that women are more prone to seek emotional support, while men avoid it. We also further examined that homosexual couples don’t have much of an issue with gender stereotypes in that they don’t need to worry about who has to work, and who has to be the caretaker. After further examination, we also found that the media has a strong influence on gender roles in not only in everyday society, but in today’s relationship gender stereotypes. This study has explored some areas of gender roles and how they have evolved, and concluded that more research needs to be done based on different generations and couple types. Our study will expand on the work mentioned in our literature review by focusing on the factors that affect each couple type and cause relationship issues. By figuring out what these factors are we can then find a way to hopefully help couples avoid these issues in the future. METHODOLOGYThe method chosen to further this research study is quantitative. A survey (or surveys) will be the best way to get the most honest responses due to the amount of sensitive questions we will be asking. Having a face-to-face interview would be too uncomfortable for our participants. It has been found that people tend to be more open and comfortable when they are behind a computer screen. This study will be focusing on how certain gender roles can affect the satisfaction in a relationship. The gender roles that will be focused on are who fulfills the main provider role and who fulfills the stay at home/caretaker role. H1: Balancing gender roles between partners in a romantic relationship will create a different level of satisfaction.This hypothesis was chosen to potentially prove that balancing gender roles in romantic relationships could further our prediction that couples will feel more satisfied with their relationships, as opposed to couples with clear gender roles. This will help us to see if balancing these gender roles, and eliminating the traditional roles, could create a different level of satisfaction.ParticipantsWe will be focusing on Baby Boomer generation and Generation X couples who have lived together for at least six months. We have chosen this group to study because the time period and society they were raised in was used to following traditional gender roles. These traditional roles are now changing to become more balanced roles and we would like to find out how these two generations are adjusting to it. We want to make sure our participants have lived together for at least six months so they will have had the chance to participate in shared tasks as well.ProcedureThe participants of this study will answer questions from an online survey in order to retrieve completely honest answers. “A survey is a system for collecting information. By asking questions or having participants respond to stimuli statements, researchers can collect data that can be used to describe, compare, or explain knowledge, attitudes, or behavior.” (Keyton, 2011). We feel participants will be more inclined to be honest if they are answering questions anonymously, because they are so personal. Surveys are also cost friendly and easy to navigate. Although some surveys have been known to be less useful because some participants often use shortcuts, or get tired of answering questions, and don’t fully concentrate on the various questions. The survey will focus on topics such as relationship satisfaction, if gender roles are present in relationships, and the shared tasks that are performed in, and outside of the home. We will also be asking our participants about their romantic relationships and how they act in them. We will also focus on the distribution of gender roles in a relationship, if romantic relationships on television have any affect on the participant’s relationship, and what the main causes of a couple’s unhappiness are. We plan to create the survey using and distribute it through e-mail and Facebook. ?See appendix A for preliminary survey questions.We chose to use a correlation test on our data. We would like to test the relationship of homosexual couples and heterosexual couples between the perceptions of gender roles that may be present. We believe that comparing these two variables will give us a better idea of which type of couple has more of an issue with gender roles, and if having equality in a relationship truly makes for a happy couple. CONCLUSIONWe are choosing to focus on Generation X and the Baby Boomer generation because they were brought up surrounded by traditional gender roles and are now in a society that is transitioning away from these traditional roles. This research is important because it will give us a better understanding of just how much influence gender roles can have in relationship satisfaction. Our overall goal is to help couples create a more balanced work and home life so they can reach a new level of relationship satisfaction.REFERENCESBaucom, B.R., McFarland, P. T., & Christensen, A. (2010). Gender, Topic, and Time in Observed Demand-Withdraw Interaction in Cross- and Same-Sex Couples. Journal of Family Psychology, 24(3), 233-242. doi: 10.1037/a0019717Caughlin, J. P., & Huston, T. L. (2006). Chapter 1: Demand/Withdraw Patterns in Marital Relationships: An Individual Differences Perspective. In, Applied Communication Matters (pp. 11-38). Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. Collins, L. (2015, September 9). Does equality between partners stabilize family life? Leavenworth Times. Retrieved October 15, 2015.Davis, R. (2015, August 25). Gender Revolution and the Restabilization of Family Life. Retrieved November 8, 2015.Griffin, E. (2009). A First Look At Communication Theory. 60. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.Haas, S. M., & Stafford, L. (2005). Maintenance Behaviors in Same-Sex and Marital Relationships: A Matched Sample Comparison. Journal of Family Communication. 5(1), 43-60. doi: 10.1207/s15327698jfc0501_3Holz Ivory, A., Gibson, R., & Ivory, J. D. (2009). Gendered Relationships on Television: Portrayals of Same-Sex and Heterosexual Couples.Keyton, J. (2011). Communication Research: Asking Questions, Finding Answers. 161. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.Lantagne, A. (2014, May 15). Gender Roles in Media. The Huffington Post. Retrieved October 15, 2015.Morris, P. (2006). Gender in Print Advertisements: A Snapshot of Representations from Around the World. Conference Papers -- International Communication Association, 1-29.Mundy, L. (2013, May 22). The Gay Guide to Wedded Bliss. The Atlantic. Retrieved October 15, 2015.Peters, N., Holmgreen, L., & Oswald, D. (2015). It’s Just a Joke: Reactions to and Justifications for Sex Stereotypes in Advertisements. Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research, 20(3), 160-168.Smokler, J. (2015, August 11). The Key to Achieving Work-Life Balance for Parents? ????????????Accepting It’s a Myth. Retrieved October 15, 2015. ???Wood, J. (2011). Chapter 1. In Gendered lives: Communication, gender, and culture (11th ed.). Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage.APPENDIX AWhat is the most important aspect of a relationship to you? (Rank 1-5, 1 = most important & 5 = least important)TrustCommunicationIndependenceShared valuesMonetary contributionThis question will help us get a better understanding of what people view as important in their relationship versus what some of our studies have said couples think is important.2. Do you think there are gender roles present in your relationship?--perceived gender rolesCompletely trueSomewhat trueUnsureSomewhat untrueCompletely untrue*Explain an experience that gives you this opinion3429007683500This question will help us to get a better picture of why or what type of gender roles may or may not be present in a relationship once they have explained further in the text box. ................
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