Contributed by: kellyseal on Friday, June 06 2014 @ 07:16 am
Last modified on
Most women will agree that they prefer equal partnership when it comes to romantic relationships. This mean they each have equal say and an equal role to play in things like finances, child care, household chores, and major decisions like where to live or whether to start a business.
It makes sense in our culture, as the majority of women are pursuing both careers and families. They want a partner who respects and supports their ambitions.
But what if the reality is different from our post-feminist ideal of equality in relationships?
New research by New York University doctoral candidate in sociology Ellen Lamont is challenging the way many women still seem to accept certain elements of “the man’s role” both in terms of dating and marriage.
Maybe some of this rings true for you: Lamont found that when dating, women seem to prefer the man to ask them out and to pay for the date, a more traditional role. Also, women like to leave it to the man to make decisions about the trajectory of their relationship. That is, they wait for him to say “I love you” or to commit to being serious first. Essentially, this puts the man in control of the relationship.
It seems dating and courtship play a big role in how women view long-term relationships. If during the dating process, women put the man in the driver’s seat (so to speak) and let him decide where things are headed, then how is it possible to easily transition to an equal partnership once they are in a long-term, committed relationship?
“[Women] want traditional courtship and egalitarian marriages and I just don’t think that will be possible,” she said. “Their justifications for traditional courtship are based on beliefs in essential biological differences between men and women and they reinforce these beliefs in their dating practices.”
Lamont chose to study women who had some form of college education to better understand women who are balancing both career aspirations and wanting a love relationship. Even with education and ambition, many of the women still subscribe to “traditional gender norms,” according to Lamont.
“Women were supposedly so desperate to get married, while men were supposedly so reluctant,” Lamont said. “I wondered if women’s so-called desperate behaviors that are so frequently highlighted in the media were actually the result of the powerlessness they feel about the process of getting engaged.”
It’s an interesting point, and maybe one worth considering as we move forward into a bigger and more technologically advanced dating pool.
The women surveyed ranged from 25 to 40 years of age.