Equal Couples

Times are changing, but in ways that can make recognizing and understanding gendered power in couple relationships confusing.  Consider these examples:

Recently our clinical research team was discussing a young heterosexual couple that was seeking therapy.  The female was upset because her male partner quit work without discussing it with her and seemed to expect that she would support their young child.  The male partner seemed very attached to other aspects of masculinity such as building up his physical strength and did not seem to know how to listen or attune to her.  But he is actively involved in caring for their son.  The female partner wants him to carry his weight. 

Another student was describing a father who also wanted to quit his professional career and be the full time caregiver for their children. As we explored the case, it became clear that he expected to make the decisions in the family, including this one.  The wife objected to his decision because she said that when he has previously been the parent-at-home most of the household tasks were still left to her.

These cases illustrate both a trend toward gender role flexibility and the tenacity of male dominance.  In her history of marriage Stephanie Coontz reported that most men no longer wanted a submissive partner. But living up to these ideals takes more than shifting who does what in the relationship. It requires relating to each other from positions of equal worth and entitlement to shape the relationship.

Posted by Carmen

Here’s an interesting item.  Over the last decades real differences between women and men have decreased on a variety of measures–math scores, sports participation, graduate school enrollment.  But as neuroscientist Lise Eliot points out in Pink Brain Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Trouble Gaps, society’s beliefs about the differences between the genders has actually GROWN. She reports that  people today perceive greater differences between women and men now than in the 1970s!!

All the talk about men and women being “hard-wired” differently and coming from different “planets” affects what we expect of ourselves and our partners.  This fascination with differences exaggerates differences in ways that make them real and limit life options and how we relate to each other.  Acording to Elliot’s comprehensive review of the data, boys and girls are born with only very small biological differences.  But we tend to treat them as though the differences are huge. This affects what we learn about ourselves and what we do. Many couples build relationships based on exaggerated notions of difference.

When Rik Rusovick and I studied young couples in the attraction stage of new relationships, we found that many of these couples (Californians all under 30) juggled conflicting notions of gender as they told us their stories of their relationships. Nearly all adamantly expected their relationships to be equal. But at the same time a number of them explained their relationship patterns based on the notions like “men and women communicate differently.” These couples seemed to celebrate gender differences with no apparent awareness of how those differences contribute to unequal relationships. 

For example, Ann,  a woman in the study said, “We’re equal. We just do our own thing.” Her partner Randy said, ” I like that she lets me play a male role. . . I wanna wear the pants.” Couples who believed in this two-planet model of equality accepted that men and women communicate differently. They want mutual understanding, but accept that men are not as good at this as women. None of the couples in the study had children. One can only imagine how their relationships could become skewed as each partner persists in “doing their own thing” when trying to raise children, and men step back because women “naturally” know how to handle kids.

The good news is that about half the couples in our study completely rejected traditional gender models as they told us about their attraction. They described being attracted because their partners did not act according to the stereotypes. For example, Emil and Paula described being attracted because of their relationship helped free them from the gender scripts for their culture. According to Paul, “I  love a good Hispanic girl that has ambitions.”

 Nearly all women and men in the study also spontaneously strongly resisted of the idea of male dominance. The challenge for the couples who believe in big gender differences is how to put this ideal into practice, since exaggerated gender differences also tend to perpetuate gender inequality.

Posted by Carmen Knudson-Martin

As I was reading about the intentional way Marc and Amy Vachon  create their own relationship (see my previous post), I was struck by their conscious resistance to falling into predetermined gender patterns.  I’m not sure we’re used to thinking of equality as resistance, but it really is.  Resistance is necessary in the face of established power dynamics that do not necessarily serve the needs and interests of individual couples.

Just today a student was describing a couple that he interviewed for a research study.  The husband said that he put family before his work.  But by default he ends up focusing more on his work than on what is important to his wife.  This happens because he does not intentionally focus on her and the old patterns take over.  To live by his ideals, he needs to intentionally resist old gender norms that invite her to focus on him, but not him to focus on her.   It takes small acts of resistance every day–at least until new patterns become ingrained.

Let’s hear it for resistance!!  How do you resist? What are your acts of resistance?

So much has changed in the last 40 years.  Most couples today expect equal relationships.  In our research couples tell us that they do not intend to follow old gender rules.   But in so many ways they do.  Women end up carrying the bulk of the responsibility for organizing family tasks, even when they hold full time jobs.  Men want to be involved fathers, but often end up stepping back as mothers take care of the children and develop emotional bonds bonds with them.  Women of all ages are disappointed that their male partners don’t listen more and tune into them emotionally, and men want relationship but don’t know how to create one.   In a time when more women graduate from college than men,  and girls—as well as boys—are encouraged to develop their talents and follow their dreams,  many people are caught off guard when they recognize that they have fallen into  old gender patterns without ever intending to.   

Couples who create equal relationships do so intentionally.  In “Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents” Marc and Amy Vachon describe their own experience and that of other couples who have found ways to put their egalitarian ideals into practice.   What stands out to me in their account is that equal relationships do not all look alike.  They are personal and intentionally created.  

The Vachons encourage readers to embrace two philosophies: equality and balance; then advocate intentionally planning how to put these into practice to create equal partnerships and individually balanced lives.   With mutual commitment and conscious planning a full range of relationship possibilities are available.

In the old gender rules both partners sacrificed aspects of themselves.  Men sacrificed being actively engaged relationally in order to be successful in the workplace; women sacrificed career to attend to their families.  The Vachons emphasize that in an equal relationship with shared parenting, both partners must be willing to cut back in some areas in order to have more of what they want in others.  The key is both partners making changes, both partners reorganizing where and how their time is spent, and conscious planning.

The equal relationships described by the Vacchons sound very different than the couples described in “Opting Out: Why Women Really Quit Their Jobs and Head Home”by Pamela Stone.   The well-educated (formerly) professional women in Stone’s study all had great jobs that they liked.  But their husbands also had great jobs, and all of the changes and pressure for parenting was put on the women.  In the end, the women decided that maintaining their jobs was too hard and sacrificed them.  These couples seemed to assume that the men’s career had priority.   Not so in the couples described by the Vachons.  In Equally Shared Parenting both partner’s intentionally set (or reset) priorities, schedules, and duties that privilege each partner’s commitments and responsibilities in family, work, and personal domains.   The Vachons argue that to create equality couples must be willing challenge taken-for granted assumptions on each front.  This means questioning ideas about what women and men “naturally” do, how much money one has to have, and even our own ideas about how certain tasks should be done.   In their account, the effort pays off in many more ways than in just sharing the work.  Each couple creates their own unique life, and in so doing, build a relationship in which each partner has ownership.

Thanks Amy and Marc for making your own process so open and in reaching out to identify others who share your success.   We need many models for how to break free from old gender traps.  You can find Amy and Marc’s blog at http://equallysharedparenting.com. 

Please share your successes with us!

posted by Carmen Knudson-Martin

If you’re interested in how some couples actually pull off shared parenting, start the new year by reading the new book by Marc and Amy Vachon, “Equally Shared Parenting: Rewriting the Rules for a New Generation of Parents.”  Drawing on their own experience and interviews with other couples who successfully share parenting, Amy and Marc  provide a highly readable guide that makes a strong case for ESP: “Each partner has to do only half the work, owns only half the responsibility for running the family, and gets half the power in the relationship” (p. 24).  Then they show readers how to do it.

Their most important argument is not really about the benefit of dividing the work; it is about the connectedness they feel to each aspect of their life, to each other, and to their children.  While this is very important to mothers, it is also a real advantage to fathers.  They get to develop intimate relationships with their children and take a full role, rather than an apprentice role in the home.  And work–even if you love it–doesn’t wipe out everything else in life.

According to the Vachons, equally shared parenting begins with commitment, with consciousness about what you want.  It involves an assessment of your values.  What do you really want to do with your life and your time?  It means that partners share relationship responsibility, child care, and housework, but also have time for themselves and engage meaningfully outside the home as well.  The actual solutions in terms of choices and schedule are as varied as the couples themselves. 

The book gives example after example of how creative couples avoid falling back into old gender patterns.  It is also clear that equally shared parenting won’t just happen.  It takes  intentionality, planning, and letting go of old gender messages that can catch us off-guard.  But the stories and practical suggestions they present give reason for optimism. In the end, it is about two willing partners who respect the sharing.  Some planned before children were born; others did a makeover years into the parenting process.  Most couples run into hurdles from time to time.  But the benefits and joy that the efforts bring are compelling.

Without models to draw on, today’s couples have trouble putting their egalitarian ideals in practice.  Thank you Amy and Marc, for helping to show the way. 

We’d love to hear from you.  What has helped you share parenting? What hurdles have you overcome–or need to overcome?  

posted by Carmen Knudson-Martin

The next generation (18-32 year olds) almost unanimously seek a life that balances work and relational connection within an egalitarian partnership.  This finding from a new study by Kathleen Gerson confirms many previous studies.  Her just  released book, The Unfinished Revolution: How a New Generation is Reshaping Family, Work, and Gender in America,”  provides an in-depth look at how women and men raised after the women’s movement respond to this ideal. She found considerable skepticism that they will be able to achieve what they want. High demands in the work place, increased pressures on parents, and limited support and flexibility in the workplace convince most of the 120 participants in her study that they may need a fall back plan. 

Not surprisingly women and men in the study describe very different–clashing–fall back plans.  Women fear that they will not be able to find a partner that will share the load with them. They speak of planning to be self-reliant, to be able to support themselves, have a satisfying work life, and raise children within a network of female support.  Men fear that they will not be able to take on all these shared responsibilities and worry about encroachment on their autonomy.  They speak of a “neotraditional” fall back plan in which they are the primary breadwinners with female partners who will help with the finances, take primary responsibility for children.

Interestingly, there is no difference between women and men in their preferred lifestyle; everyone wants relational connection and a satisfying work life.  This was true across ethnic and socio-economic groups.  Neotraditional fall back plans–when expressed by women–were more common among upper-middle class white women than women of color or those from working class and poor backgrounds. This finding surprised me at first, but makes sense given that the fall back plans are based on expectations that their preferred egalitarian relationships may not pan out.  Only middle-class white women have faith that the men in their lives will be able to financially sustain a family.

Gerson’s study points to the need for solutions!  Today’s younger women and men need models for what works. Marc and Amy Vachon host a website called Equally Shared Parenting that provides this kind of help.  Look also for their soon-to-released book (same title) that shares the collected experience and wisdom of couples like themselves who are actually making shared parenting work.  Our book,  “Couples, Gender, and Power: Creating Change in Intimate Relationships“   illustrates how some couples are able to accomplish equality while so many others fall short of their ideals.

It is also important to note that the concerns Gerson’s study participants raise are real.  Without changes in workplace structures and policies and better and affordable child care options, the road for couples is challenging.  Gerson concludes that couples with more flexible gender models have more options and are better able to negotiate and maintain satisfying lifestyles.  She also calls for social policies that emphsize a collective responsibility for children, not just leaving it to families. We couldn’t agree more!

 

posted by Carmen

I just returned from giving a presentation in Puerto Rico.  Family researchers there described a very high rate of  sex with “secondary partners” among young couples. Their focus groups reported that women also claimed the “right” to extra-sex—non-emotional sex outside their primary relationships.  This seemed to be a way to gain equality. I’m all for women enjoying sex.  But I worry  about a model of equality that focuses only on individual freedoms without also including shared responsibility for the relationship.

Some of the questions  the Puerto Rican researchers had not yet explored were whether women were adopting a masculine model of relationship and if their relationship ideals and preferences were being compromised—in other words, were they playing by relationship rules defined by men?  These are important questions for women and men everywhere. In the old model of relating sex was often viewed as something men wanted and women didn’t. Women could use the “giving” of sex as a bargaining card. Women claiming their right to sexual pleasure for themselves as well as their partners is important to equality. But women simply becoming more like men seems to me a very limited answer. Sexuality between equal parterns imvolves so much more.

This topic is pretty new territory—one that Anne and I want to explore in more depth.  We need your help.  What does an equal sexual relationship look like? What issues are involved? How is equal sex part of a mutually supportive couple relationship? 

posted by Carmen

Tom Blume alerted us to a News York Times story on equality in the Obama’s marriage.  It seems to me that they may be an illustration of the struggles couples face in trying to live out egalitarian ideals.  Here is part of the story when they were asked about equality:

”Michelle Obama gave what sounded like a small, sharp “mmphf” of recognition, and the fluid teamwork of their answers momentarily came to a halt. “Well, first of all. . . .” the president started. His wife peered at him, looking curious as to how he might answer the question.

“She’s got. . . .” he began, but then stopped again.

 “Well, let me be careful about this,” he said, pausing once more. “My staff worries a lot more about what the first lady thinks than they worry about what I think,” he finally said, to laughter around the room.

The question still unanswered, his wife stepped back in: “Clearly Barack’s career decisions are leading us. They’re not mine; that’s obvious. I’m married to the president of the United States. I don’t have another job, and it would be problematic in this role. So that —you can’t even measure that.” She did add that they are more equal in their private lives — how they run their household, how they raise their children, the overall choices they make.’

Just this morning one of my students was discussing with me her plans for a study on how couples magange egalitarian ideals over time–how they make decisions and keep the relationship going through the struggles without models to guide them.  She wonders where couples get their models.  So I wonder….what relationship models do the Obamas represent? Is it even possible to talk about equality when you’re dealing with the President of the U.S.? On various occassions they have described the struggles they have gone through over the years to balance careers, family, love, and ambition. Most of our lives are less public, but the issues are very real. How do people manage equality over the long term?  Looking forward to your thoughts.

posted by Carmen

 I think one of the reasons that couples get stuck in old, unequal relationship patterns is that—to greater or lesser extents—old constructions of gender have become part of our identities.  We can be moving along, thinking we are beyond old gender ideologies and then suddenly find ourselves caught by gender messages that have been allowed to define us.  Creating relational change means  redefining how we know ourselves as women and men. Tom Blume calls this identity renegotiation.

Here’s an example. Last night our clinical research team was working with a couple. At the start of therapy the wife was “ready to walk.” But what she really wanted was to connect with her husband—to know what he was thinking and feeling.  The husband also wanted to connect with her—in theory. But when he considered sharing what he was thinking and feeling, he stopped short. When we probbed what was happening, he said that sharing in this way would “make him feel weak.”

Stereotypic gender socialization creates a power imbalance by inviting women to tune into their partners, but discouraging men from doing the same. This left the husband in our case operating from a position that made it difficult for his wife to affect him or for him to recongize and be accountable for the impact his behavior on her. 

The therapist helped the husband challenge the cultural messages that told him that what was he was feeling would be unacceptable to others; that he needed to hide any sign of  “weakness” or be a failure as a man.  We could see his identity literally start to shift as he confronted this lie with tears of relief.

According to Blume, identities are not permanent like a personality. They arise within the circumstances around us.  Societal gender messages are especially  influential and can be deeply internalized. Breaking free from these identities can be difficult. But it is possible and, as our client discovered, makes developing mutually supportive relationships possible. 

posted by Carmen

Our guest post today is by family counselor/professor Tom Blume. He is a Vietnam veteran, father of 2 adult sons and former stay-at-home dad.

In a recent conversation with family therapist colleagues one of them
suggested that men might feel discomfort in roles where nurturing
qualities are expected. That struck a chord for me as a former nursery
school teacher–there probably is a sense of dissonance for many men
when they look at any situation (including parenting) in which they
are encouraged to become softer, more sensitive, more tentative, and
more open to others’ feelings. A recent series of Bud Light
commercials (Real American Heroes, mocking those who don’t conform)
demonstrates the message about masculinity–it encourages
conformity by creating a sense of shame in men who abandon their “true
nature” and become “girly.”

I have watched this process with many male counseling students over
the years, most notably with one who came into my classroom within
weeks after returning from combat in Iraq. He jumped into every conversation with insulting comments toward
women. I had to call him on it more than once. A year later his
struggle was over, and even though he was outnumbered by the women
students he was a team player and seemed to enjoy the opportunity to
become one of the gang.

I think that there are women as well who experience this kind of
dissonance. One of our doctoral students has been working on gender
issues among women in law enforcement, where he believes they often
accommodate to the anti-woman bias of their co-workers.”

Post by Tom Blume

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