Gender Roles in a Relationship

In today’s highly competitive world, everyone has to be on top of his or her game. All of us have to fend for ourselves and symbiotic relationships between individuals are facing trials and tribulations like never before. Within such an environment, the ideology of an egalitarian society with equal opportunities and treatment of all, irrespective of gender, has been pushed forward and to quite a large extent, practiced. However, what are we to do when the notions of equality and fairness are subject to the opinions of the sexes? If the fundamental building blocks of an egalitarian approach are by perception different for individuals, reaching the utopian ideal of an equal society for the sexes is hard to imagine. In conjunction, the trouble couples face in their marital lives when it comes to equal divisions of labor (paid or unpaid) and feelings of appreciation make one’s quest for a gender-friendly, equal society difficult to establish. One way to reconcile the differences between perceptions of fairness among the two genders is by objectively qualifying what each quality (equality, fairness, empathy) means to each sex. In the article Gender and Fairness: Marital Satisfaction in Two-Earner Couples, the authors attempt to qualitatively assess the “the relationship between marital satisfaction and the family division of both paid and domestic work…and whether value preferences for the gender division, the balance of power, and perceptions of equity and empathy” (577) have any effect on how labor is divided in a family circle. In essence, this article gets to the roots of the dynamics of a working relationship, determining the necessity of “perceived fairness” (Wilkie et. al 578) and “perceived empathy” (Wilkie et. al 589) for marital satisfaction while delineating the criteria that defines each for the two sexes. The authors use a combination of gender and equity theory to aid their efforts for their scientific research. The purpose? Namely to create a gendered model or understanding of how these dynamics have an effect on the emotional marital satisfaction of a relationship and improve the quality of married life by being observant to the needs of both partners.

The first baby step for such an undertaking was to decide all the contributing factors that affect fairness, equality, and satisfaction in a marital relationship. The authors believe that “the relationship between the division of paid and domestic labor and marital satisfaction is mediated by role preferences, the balance of agenda-setting power, and perceptions of equity and empathy and that these relationships differ by gender” (583). With all of the research that the authors undertook through a survey of 382 educated, married couples, quite a few conclusions can be drawn. It was found that even if the actual division of labor was unequal, the perceived fairness of it was equal if the spouse received appreciation and credit for his or her work. For example, if the woman received empathy and understanding from the male (by his partaking in just a little bit of the domestic work), she was content even if the actual domestic labor division was unequal. Similarly, it was found that men (after the 1980s) were more content when their wives took on jobs and appreciated the breadwinning role of the male. Interestingly it was found that “both men and women are guided by conventional gender expectations in their judgment of what is fair” (Wilkie et. al 587). In addition, personal preferences were found to be more important than abstract norms in separate relationship structures and “husbands’ priorities more substantially and more significantly influence perceptions of equity and empathy and so indirectly affect marital satisfaction” (Wilkie et. al 592).

From this basic backdrop of findings and conclusions, one can analyze the power dynamic and social setting of relationships between a male and a female. It is to be noted that despite the egalitarian views of society today, men and women are still affected in their thinking by conventional gender roles and this social conditioning has far reaching consequences in all spheres of life. The woman has traditionally held the role of the primary care giver and held a housekeeping label while the male has held the role of breadwinning. While these norms do not hold true today, their subtle influence clearly still pervades through society. This is proven by the fact that even now, there are women who pull a “double day” (Wilkie et. al, 577) with a paid workday and an unpaid housework day later in the evening. This workload is exacerbated when children under the age of six are involved. Invariably, the mother becomes more directly responsible than the father in the caretaking of the children at tender ages. Furthermore, the fact that a husband’s preferences get more factored in to the relationship prove that the conventional norm of having a male dominated relationship indirectly and subtly still holds. While women are more empowered today and speak their minds freely (in the United States at least), according to the research done by the authors, male preferences still tend to control the direction of the relationship, the division of labor, and the abstract norms (ex. conventional gender roles, ideas of what is “woman’s work” or “man’s work”) that are incorporated. In order to balance the scales equally instead of the generous dip towards the side of the males, it is necessary to figure out a way to equally delegate this workload as the equity theory (defines what is fair) would propose. The authors turned to gender theory (analyses the behaviors of the sexes and the meanings attached to them) for this purpose. With the integration of the two, one realizes that empathy is the key to providing perceived fairness.