MOVING BEYOND GENDER: PROCESSES THAT CREATE RELATIONSHIP EQUALITY

April 2005 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY 235

MOVING BEYOND GENDER: PROCESSES THAT CREATE RELATIONSHIP EQUALITY

Carmen Knudson-Martin

Loma Linda University

Anne Rankin MahoneyUniversity of Denver

Equality is related to relationship success, yet few couples achieve it. In this qualitative study, we examine how couples with children in two time cohorts (1982 and 2001) moved toward equality. The analysis identifies three types of couples: Postgender, gender legacy, and traditional. Movement toward equality is facilitated by: (a) Stimulus for change, including awareness of gender, commitment to family and work, and situational pressures; and (b) patterns that promote change, including active negotiation, challenges to gender entitlement, development of new competencies, and mutual attention to relationship and family tasks. Implications for practice are discussed.

A recent review of the effectiveness of couples therapy concluded that there is substantial research evidence documenting that gender stereotyped roles are bad for relationship stability and satisfaction (Johnson, 2003). Equal sharing of power has been found to contribute to relationship success and satisfaction for both women and men (Gottman & Silver, 1999; Steil, 1997). Relationship equality provides an important foundation for couples who report success in balancing work and family life (Haddock, Zimmerman, Ziemba, & Current, 2001) and is related to fewer symptoms of depression and higher levels of emotional well-being and intimacy (Steil, 1997). Yet, there is considerable evidence that most couples fall into unequal relationship patterns without their conscious intention or awareness (e.g., Knudson-Martin & Mahoney, 1996, 1998; Zimmerman, Haddock, Ziemba, & Rust, 2001; Zvonkovic, Greaves, Schmeige, & Hall, 1996). Knowing how couples are able to achieve equality is therefore important to a more complete understanding of the factors involved in relationship success and the ability of therapists to help couples attain it.

In this study, we examine how couples can bring their mutual expectations and daily behaviors in line with the needs of equal relationships. Our interest goes beyond how a couple decides who will clean the house. The goal of this research is to gain insight into the processes through which couples build mutual relationships that are based on different assumptions than traditional gender roles. An emphasis on process shifts us away from thinking about marital equality as an all-or-nothing phenomenon and turns attention instead to how couples move toward greater relationship equality. We utilize qualitative interviews of marital couples from two different sources and time periods. One is a set of interviews conducted in 2001 under the supervision of the first author. The second is a set of interviews done in 1982 by Whitbourne and Ebmeyer (1990) for the purpose of studying intimacy and identity in marriage.

Carmen Knudson-Martin, PhD, Professor and Director of Doctoral Programs in Marital and Family Therapy, Department of Counseling and Family Sciences, Loma Linda University; Anne Rankin Mahoney, PhD, Professor of Sociology, University of Denver.

This research used the Identity and Intimacy in Marriage data set (made accessible in 1991). These data were collected by Susan Krauss Whitbourne and Joyce B. Ebmeyer and donated to the archive of the Henry A. Murray Research Center of Radcliffe College, Cambridge, Massachusetts (Producer and Distributor).

Address correspondence to Carmen Knudson-Martin, PhD, Loma Linda University, Department of Counseling and Family Sciences, Griggs Hall, Loma Linda, California, 92350; E-mail: [email protected]

Journal of Marital and Family TherapyApril 2005, Vol. 31, No. 2, 235–258

236 JOURNAL OF MARITAL AND FAMILY THERAPY April 2005

GENDER, EQUALITY, AND RELATIONSHIP SUCCESS

Although a feminist concern for gender equality and a therapeutic concern for the well-being and stability of contemporary families have not always been seen as compatible, the research cited above suggests that these two concerns are closely connected. Gottman and Silver (1999) found in their longitudinal research on couples that those who shared power had a high level of marital success. Men who were unwilling to share power with their wives had an 81% failure rate in their marriages. Coltrane’s 1996 study of men also shows that egalitarian family organization enhances couple stability. He suggests that the act of caring for children, in itself, changes men because it stimulates development of greater sensitivity and nurturing behavior.

Haddock et al. (2001) studied couples who considered themselves to be successfully managing the work–family balance. Although they identified 10 factors that contributed to this success, the authors concluded that a foundation of equality and partnership provided the basis for the others. Similarly, Steil (1997) examined the relationship between marital relationships and well-being. She found that equal power was key to positive personal and relationship outcomes, primarily because it enhanced direct communi-cation and intimacy. She cites costs of inequality to both partners. Costs for the powerful include decreased openness, loss of intimacy, and decreased relationship satisfaction. Costs to the less powerful include increased dependency, lowered self-esteem, and feelings of hostility and depression.

Given the growing evidence that equality enhances relationship satisfaction and stability, it is of concern that equality eludes so many. Feminist theory suggests that gendered expectations and behaviors, like other deeply embedded social patterns, shape and define behavior and limit what is considered possible. They are reproduced by complex interactional and institutional processes and are generated and sustained over time (Fox & Murry, 2000), even though they may become inappropriate to changing relationships and situations (Risman, 1998). Because of their taken-for-granted nature, they are often invisible. Today, old gender patterns are being challenged in many aspects of our society. Yet family life, to a large extent, remains organized around and reproduces gender structures.

Gender and the Organization of Family LifeIn spite of a general desire for marital equality among contemporary American couples, strong

pressures at the individual, interactional, and institutional levels pull them back toward old gender stereotypic behaviors (Risman, 1998). Many individuals continue to be subtly socialized to “natural” differences between men and women. Friends and family members still make a big deal about a man who “helps” his wife and “babysits” regularly. Women still earn approximately 75 cents to a man’s dollar. Many companies still look askance at male parental leave. Risman conceptualizes gender as structure, with ideological and material components that affect social life at all levels. She posits a tension between an individual’s ideological position and a social system still imbued with gender expectations and assumptions. She argues that identifying how gendered behavior occurs, even in the face of individual desires to the contrary, is central to moving forward in our understanding of, and education for, marital equality.

Our study addresses how couples wrestle with the tension described by Risman (1998). We are interested in how those who desire equal relationships resist the interactional pressures and institu-tional designs that work against them. Classic studies by Hochschild (1989), Blaisure and Allen (1995), Risman (1998), and Schwartz (1994) give some clues. Hochschild (1989) first raised our awareness that couples who espoused gender equality often reproduced the interactional patterns of gender inequality through strategies of denial and rationalization. Subsequent research on feminist couples by Blaisure and Allen (1995), fair families by Risman (1998), and peer marriages by Schwartz (1994) showed that marital equality is possible and that it is maintained through on-going attention and vigilance. Many of the equal couples in these studies, however, appeared to be quite different from most American couples.

Deutsch’s (1999) recent work on shared parenting shows some interesting patterns regarding how a variety of couples engage with the issue of equality. She looked at five groups: Equal sharers


(50–50); potential equal sharers, 60–40 couples; 75–25 couples; and alternating shift couples. She stressed the importance of a couple’s response to the details of everyday life in shaping a pattern of sharing. Through their response, some “invented” equality. Though women usually took the lead in “fighting” for equality, men had to engage in the process for it to move forward and had to relinquish some privileges to which they may have previously felt entitled. Many of Deutsch’s couples employed strategies that had the insidious effect of keeping the work in the woman’s domain, even as she worked full-time outside the home.

Deutsch’s study offers an in-depth look at couples as they confront equality. Her sample, however, was 96% White and “overrepresents upper middle class and well educated participants” (Deutsch, 1999, p. 240). Our study expands previous research by including couples from a wide variety of backgrounds. We also include emotional and relational issues as well as household ones.

Responsibility and PowerOne area in which old gender expectations and behaviors complicate the lives of couples is in the

distribution of responsibility and power. Responsibility for keeping the family running smoothly and accommodation of the needs of other family members has long been part of the gender expectations for women. This wide-ranging authority may look like power but, traditionally, the wife has carried out her responsibilities within the scope of her husband’s delegation. She handles only the tasks he does not want, usually the ones he considers undesirable, and always with awareness of his potential veto power. Traditional gender rhetoric, however, screens this power relationship with a language that exalts the woman’s authority in the home and the “natural” abilities and personal “choices” of both partners.

One area of responsibility for family life that remains almost entirely in the purview of wives is the relatively invisible but time-consuming task of family organization, which involves the arrangement of carpools, keeping the family calendar, identifying household tasks to be done, the hiring and supervision of household help, and so on. In a study of 47 middle-class, dual-earner couples, who perceived themselves as successful in balancing family and work, most couples left these duties almost completely to the wives (Zimmerman et al., 2001). Part of this responsibility also involves picking up the slack for other family members when they do not do their family work. Daily logs obtained from spouses by Pittman, Kerpelman, and Solheim (2001) showed that even in high-sharing couples, women were more likely than men to increase their efforts at housework when their spouses were experiencing stress at work.

Power, as we use it here, is the ability to influence a relationship toward one’s own goals, interests, and well-being. It is related to the ability to set the agenda (Wilke, Ferree, & Ratcliff, 1998). Marital power is often invisible and latent (Komter, 1989). Power is invisible when one partner learns the parameters of acceptable behavior and functions within them. There is an underlying assumption that what is in the husband’s best interest is in the wife’s best interest also (Coltrane, 1996). There is no overt conflict, and power appears to be equal because the wife never wants anything the husband does not want. A study that examined couples’ shared work and family decisions, for example, found that even though both partners reported that their decisions were mutual, outcomes tended to favor the husband’s needs and goals more than the wife’s (Zvonkovic et al., 1996). Latent power exists when established ways of thinking prevent other options from even being considered. A small example, but one that many can relate to, is Walker’s (1996) finding that men dominated the remote control in almost all couples engaged in shared television viewing.

As women and men pull back from a gendered family organization, they need to overcome the invisible and latent power assumptions that still place the bulk of family responsibilities on women and undermine their power in relationships. Creative problem solving is necessary for couples to resist the gendered forces that slow their move toward equality. Yet, creative problem solving itself is often inhibited by the very gender-bound attitudes and behaviors couples are trying to escape (Knudson-Martin & Mahoney, 1998; Coltrane, 1996; Kurdek, 2002). Such attitudes and behaviors persist despite evidence that actual gender differences in skills such as communication are often less pronounced than perceived (Johnson, 2003).


METHOD

Development of the StudyThis qualitative analysis is part of an on-going program of research and writing focused on marital

equality that we began around 1995. Following some initial theoretical work based on clinical observations, we did a qualitative analysis of interviews of newly married couples. We found that despite their professions of equality, most couples continued to organize their relationships around traditional gender expectations, what we called the “myth of equality” (Knudson-Martin & Mahoney, 1998). We wondered if these patterns would differ as couples settled into their marriages. To explore this, we acquired a set of qualitative interviews (conducted in 1982) of long-term couples, who described themselves as egalitarian. We saw this middle-class, well-educated, East-coast population as likely to be trendsetters, ahead of most of their contemporaries in their awareness of gender issues. Yet, like the newly married couples, only a few were able to achieve equality as it is defined in this article. We decided to investigate the processes involved as couples integrate equality into their lives.

To expand our sample to include a more diverse population and younger couples and also to gain an understanding of how couples today talk about gender issues in marriage, we conducted new interviews in 2001. We use both sets of interviews in the analysis presented in this article. Taken together, they allow us to examine how a wide variety of couples respond to the contradictory pulls between equality and the historically gendered patterns of family life. They enable us to focus on basic principles that override length of marriage, era, and ethnic/racial background to develop a better understanding of the processes that move couples toward equality. See Table 1 for a presentation of key demographic variables.

Definition of EqualityWe brought to our work an understanding of equality, which includes four aspects: Partners hold

equal status; accommodation in the relationship is mutual; attention to the other in the relationship is mutual; and there is mutual sense of well-being of the partners (Knudson-Martin & Mahoney, 1996, 1998). Consequently, we were interested in how couples share accommodation and attention and how they take into account individual needs and interests. We assumed that cultural scripts for gender were likely to be part of these processes, that these meanings are in flux, and that they often reside beneath the conscious awareness of the couples.

We approached the study with a social-constructionist perspective toward the research process. That

Table 1 Key Demographic Characteristics

1980 (n = 27) 200l (n = 28)

Years married 12.0* 4.6 Number of children 2.0 1.7 Education: Wife 16.3 15.7 Education: Husband 16.3 15.8 Age: Wife 31.1 28.5 Age: Husband 36.7 29.8 % Wives employed** 56% 50% % Minority status 7% 67%

*All averages are means.**Includes part-time work and full-time student.


is, though we followed systematic procedures for data collection and analysis, we did not presume that the meaning in the data exists independent of us (Charmaz, 2000). As feminist scholars, we have struggled with gender issues in our own marriages and work lives. These perspectives and experiences cannot be separated from the results presented here. At the same time, we sought to glean the experience and explanations of the participants with as much sensitivity to their perspectives as possible.

THE TWO DATA SETS

1982 CouplesThe 27 couples in the 1982 study include all the couples with children interviewed by Whitbourne and

Ebmeyer (1990) for their study of identity and intimacy in marriage. Whitbourne and Ebmeyer’s original study included 40 couples married at least 5 years. Partners were interviewed separately by the researchers, then brought together to discuss a conflict. All lived in and around a moderate-sized Northeastern city, and almost all were White and middle class. Volunteers were recruited through advertising in local media and were given a booklet of discount tickets for local restaurants and movie theaters as an enticement. When asked to classify their relationships as traditional (male dominated), egalitarian (both partners considered equal), or matriarchal (female dominated), almost all the couples described themselves as egalitarian. None classified themselves as traditional. Interviews included many questions that tapped gender, power, and responsibility, such as how they handled decision making, who had responsibility for family tasks, how they handled conflict, and whose wishes took precedence. The interviewers worked with an open-ended interview schedule and encouraged subjects to extensively elaborate on their answers. We see these couples as beacons of change, the first generation to try to put the egalitarian ideals of the 1960s and 1970s into action.

2001 Couples These interviews include 28 couples with children no older than 5 years of age. They were interviewed

in California by an ethnically diverse group of doctoral students under the supervision of the first author. Volunteers were recruited by word of mouth. The resulting sample purposively reflects a diverse population including White, African American, Hispanic, Asian, and Eastern European men and women. Partners were interviewed together regarding whether equality was important to them, how they determined household and family responsibilities and made decisions, whether they thought their relationship was fair, and how they communicated with and attended to each other. Interviewers worked with an open-ended interview schedule similar to the one used in the 1982 study. Subjects were encouraged to elaborate on their answers.

AnalysisOur procedures for analysis were guided by the methods for developing grounded theory proposed by

Strauss and Corbin (1998). Our goal was to first comprehend the meaning and experiences of the couples’ lives as they described them and then to move from their individual experience to a higher, more abstract level of explanation. Our application of the grounded theory method was also informed by Charmaz’s (2000) social-constructionist view of grounded theory in which the researchers do not presume that their systematic methods will discover an objective truth. Instead, we created a constructed interpretation grounded in the data and organized by the means of analysis. Analysis was thus a circular process in which our interpretations were filtered back to the data at each level of analysis in a method referred to as “constant comparison” (Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Our emerging explanations needed to be consistent with each case, or revised.

The first level of analysis involved what Strauss and Corbin (1998) call open coding. Here we began to conceptualize the data by going through the interviews line by line and giving each incident or idea a name that describes what is happening. For example, “divide tasks,” “limit choices,” “both accommodate,” “household interests become her interests,” or “her nurturing explained as natural.” Our naming of these practices was influenced by our interest in the four aspects of equality described above, our focus on


understanding how couples organize their family lives, and our interest in how responsibility and power play out in relationships. As we named each incident, we determined what was happening and whether it was conceptually distinct from something named previously. Couples from both data sets were coded in this manner.

The next level of analysis involved moving from individual cases and categories to a higher level of conceptualization. Though all the couples in both data sets referred to equality and some form of partnership, we found we could categorize them into three types based on how much they relied on gender to organize their relationship: Postgender, gender legacy, and traditional. Although most couples were in some form of gender transition and less stagnant than the use of categories implies, the categories were useful mechanisms for making sense of the data and for distinguishing the processes involved as couples move toward gender equality. To be consistent with the tenants of grounded theory, as new categories and understandings evolved, they were brought back to the data in both time periods. To complete our analysis of the gender equality processes common to both data sets, we developed a diagram of the dynamics of this process, which is presented in the results section in Figure 1.

RESULTS

The results section is divided into two parts. The first describes the three kinds of couple organization we identified in both data sets, with a vignette representative of each. The second describes the processes that facilitate relationship equality and minimize drift back to stereotyped gender patterns.

Three Kinds of Couple OrganizationCouples vary widely in the extent to which gender is central to their family organization, but three

fairly distinct patterns emerge: Postgender, gender legacy, and traditional. Because gender expectations and entitlements are often beyond conscious awareness, we looked not only at what partners said about gender,

Figure 1. Process of Moving Beyond Gender in Family Organization.


but also at what they said they did in their day-to-day interactions. Of the total 55 couples, we classified 11 as postgender, 37 as gender legacy, and seven as traditional.

Postgender. The term postgender was introduced to us by Risman and Johnson-Summerford’s 1998 study of fair couples. Postgender partners in our study begin with the assumption that responsibility for all aspects of family life is shared. They consciously reject old gender constructions and actively work to create relationship patterns that are intentionally based on mutuality. These couples create relationships that come close to the definition of equality we presented earlier.

Brian and Lisa have an infant daughter, and both have careers in business. From the beginning of their marriage, sharing financial and housekeeping tasks “came naturally.” When their child was born, they consciously devised strategies to keep responsibility equal. Brian was the sole coach in the delivery room, and they purposely spent the first week at home together working out their “systems” before they invited the family to come. Although Lisa breastfeeds the baby, they have developed a shared process. Brian brings the baby to Lisa, then after she feeds her on one side, Brian “burps her and checks her diaper and then I get her back.” Brian is the primary caregiver and does his work from a home office. “I am going to try to be here to raise her without daycare at all,” he asserts. Lisa and Brian report automatically working as a team. If one cooks, the other one will do the dishes. Both feel free to raise issues. They are clear “that it is important to both of us that we have the power.”

Gender legacy. Couples with a gender legacy reflect the contradictory pulls between equality and gender expectations at the institutional level. They talk about their relationships in language that is strongly egalitarian, using terms such as “50–50,” “mutual respect,” “teamwork,” and “back and forth.” They say gender is not the basis for their division of labor. Yet, as they describe their daily lives, a legacy of gender seems to underlie the emotional and organizational structure. Though their rationales for task allocation are similar to those of postgender couples—skills, preference, or situation—gender legacy couples have skills and preferences that remain closely linked to their gender (i.e., “I know she knows how to take care of the baby”). Wives describe themselves and are described by their husbands as “naturally accommodating” and more “in tune” with the needs of others. Women, more than men, organize to maximize their time at home. Invisible and latent power structures support gendered expectations and behaviors, prevent partners from considering alternative options, and leave women responsible for work and family life by default. This group is thus distinguished by the automatic way partners fall into gender-typical patterns and leave family responsibilities primarily in the hands of women, in spite of their articulated commitment to equality.

Karina and Miguel appear egalitarian at first glance. Katrina runs her own business and Miguel works for a local governmental agency. They have a young son. When asked what constitutes a good relationship, Karina answers, “Going 50–50.” Miguel says it’s “participating together—whether it’s cooking or cleaning or shopping.” “Gender really doesn’t play a role,” he says. Yet, in the actual discussion of household tasks, Karina takes primary responsibility for the home and their child. “Fairness,” she says, “is him cooking dinner when I can’t cook dinner or him giving the baby a bath when I can’t.” Responsibilities are divided according to “who is home, who has the ability to take care of it.” More often than not it is Karina. Although Miguel wants more “together” time than his parents had, he assumes she will be available when he is and does not like when she “chooses to go out when it’s not a necessity.” He says he often does not “pick up” on times when she needs emotional support. On her part, Karina admits that she edits the issues she raises in order to “smooth things over.” She feels many of their conflicts “go unresolved.”

Traditional. Traditional couples consciously organize their family life around gender. They either ascribe a divine basis for this structure (i.e., God or Nature) or a social normative basis for them. They frame men and women as “naturally different” and “meant to play different roles.” The division of tasks is not viewed as open to negotiation, although they report some temporary flexibility in how these tasks are met on a day-to-day basis. Partners say that they “know their roles” and that little discussion is necessary. Nevertheless, equality is important to them. They say each person and each “role” is entitled to “equal respect.” They share decision making. Equality, they say, means that each partner has a voice in decisions, that each is heard. Women speak of trusting their husbands to use their power not in their own self-interest, but for the good of the family. Potential conflict is reduced by placing authority for the decision outside the family unit.


James and Kwan are the parents of a young daughter and are expecting another child. James is a school counselor. Kwan is an accountant. They live with her parents. Their gender-based organization was insisted upon by Kwan. “I want the father to be the head of the house and I want him to lead or make important decisions.” In decision making they each contribute their perspectives, but in the process, Kwan tends to defer to him. “He changes all the perspectives that I had. . . . He is a big thinker. He doesn’t just go after his emotions like me.” James sees Kwan as “stronger” when it comes to household tasks. He says, “It is not natural for me to look around and to say ‘Oh I need to do this’. . . I don’t see a mess where she does.” Part of Kwan’s job is to orchestrate James’s family involvement, “Whenever he is home and he has a free moment, I want him to spend it with [child].” Like other traditional couples, Kwan and James view equality not as the division of tasks but as equally giving to the relationship.

Moving Toward Equality

The institutional tensions between gender hierarchy and the ideal of marital equality described in the scholarly literature on family are articulated frequently by couples, especially in the 2001 data set. Partners move back and forth between espousing equality and expressing gendered expectations and patterns that promote inequality. Gendered behavior in families is still so ingrained that a couple’s move toward equal partnership does not just happen. At least one partner has to consciously recognize the need for change and initiate negotiation about new ways of organizing family life. Even those couples who reported that equality “came naturally” also described explicit steps to maintain it.

Partners and couples vary in the extent to which they pursue change. Those who seek it tend to have at least one of the following characteristics. They express awareness about gender issues, hold dual commitments to both work and family, or feel situational pressures that are not well-served by old gender patterns. Once at least one partner recognizes a need to change family dynamics, four patterns seem particularly salient to the change process itself: Active negotiation about family life; challenging gender entitlements; development of new competencies; and mutual attention to relationship and family tasks. Couples who moved beyond gender as the primary basis for their family organization tended to exhibit most of these patterns. The factors that stimulate change and behavioral patterns that support it are shown in Figure 1. They are discussed in detail below.

Stimulus for ChangeAwareness of gender issues. Postgender partners in both the 1982 and 2001 data sets express much

more awareness about the problematic nature of gender and about hidden and latent power issues than the others. Lisa and Brian both reject traditional gender patterns and operate with comparable levels of power in the outside world. They say they “just naturally” developed nongendered patterns at home. Nevertheless postgender couples come to realize that what seems natural to them is often responded to with hostility by others. Jeanne explains that her husband was unable to stay home with their baby as he wanted because, “his boss did not have the same expectations about what the parental leave policy explicitly states . . . so [husband] was in a tough place.” Another wife describes the price her husband pays for his family involvement. “He has gotten a lot of flack from our friends. They are very traditional people . . . and the men sometimes say things to him.”

Postgender couples work to keep themselves aware of gender, often by referring to what they want to avoid. “I’ve learned not to try to fix the problem, which of course is the natural guy thing to do,” explains one father. In contrast, gender legacy couples use gender to justify behavior and alleviate the need for change. Miguel, for example, says that he does not pick up on Lisa’s needs because “it’s a guy thing.”

Dual commitments to family and work. Equality is promoted when both partners express a strong commitment to both family and work participation. These couples operate within a narrative that makes family commitment a high priority for men and commitment to paid work a high priority for women. When both partners share these commitments, pressures mount for mutual involvement in family life. Gender moves off center as the rationale for organizing family division of labor. Juan, a postgender father, sees his commitment to family as different from that of other men he knows: “Guys say, ‘hey, let’s go someplace.’ . . . I plan my day to be around [wife and children].”


Movement toward equality is stimulated when wives see their work as an integral part of their lives and the family income. As one wife put it, “He earns it for us. And I earn it for us.” Education is important as well. A mutual commitment to education and work is what initially attracted some partners to each other. Carlota, a postgender wife, describes this: “We both wanted to be educated. We took the same type of road to go to college.” The mutual commitment to family and work does not preclude taking time off to stay home with an infant. Several postgender women were not working outside the home at the time of the interview, yet they saw their status as a temporary privilege, not a lifestyle or vocation. Bridget, at home after the birth of a first child, says, “I just wasn’t ready to go back to work. It means a lot to me that [husband] supports me in not doing that and said we are going to find ways, we just are.”

When commitment to paid work is not equal, gender is likely to become a prime organizing force in family life as women vest their identity in family responsibilities, and men invest theirs in work. LaNette, a traditional wife says, “Every single hour I hate the job and I feel the job is taking more time from our relationship.” LaNette’s husband says, “Certain things shouldn’t even be a discussion. This is what I do for a living.” Often one of a woman’s important family tasks becomes monitoring and arranging her husband’s involvement in family activities. “Wait a minute, hello. You’re a father, you’re a husband. We need to see you.”

Situational pressures. Changes in circumstances, such as the wife going to work, can precipitate changes and start a reorganization of family life. Niki put it simply, “We have to share because I work. I can’t possibly do everything.” Star and her husband Jason relate a similar shift. “When she started working I started to help out,” Jason explains. The couple reported a “natural” shift in perspectives regarding fairness. “We each make sure,” Jason says, “that one person doesn’t get overloaded with everything.” These kinds of changes occurred when partners found that their old habits and gender-based skills were not adequate for the expanded roles in which they found themselves.

Change Process The factors described above stimulate couples to make changes that promote and maintain equality.

The interpersonal patterns described below appear necessary to make the desire for equality real and to sustain it over time.

Active negotiation about family life. Movement toward equality requires facing conflict and working to resolve issues, rather than letting them fester. One postgender couple sums it up: “We both realize that when there is a problem, it needs to be addressed right away and we don’t let it grow and grow.” Both husbands and wives in more equal couples described ways in which they learned to get input from both sides and improved negotiation skills over time. “It used to be if there was a problem, I wouldn’t say a word,” one husband explained, “I think she’s taught me, through the years, to talk and get it out. I think I’m pretty good at it now.” Another husband reports, “Over the years we’ve learned about the value of communication.”

Some couples experimented with different ways of organizing their relationship and came to do it so routinely that they now rarely think about it, “. . . so we have talked in the past and we don’t have to talk a lot now.” Active negotiation of family life, however, also involves self-monitoring to make sure each person is doing his or her share. “You need to be sure you put in that effort, that fifty percent effort . . . You have to be conscious of it all the time.” Gender legacy couples also talked about just doing what comes “naturally,” but did not describe the negotiation and self-monitoring that had become an on-going part of the postgender couples’ relationships.

Challenging gender entitlement. Gendered behavior is kept in place in part by the latent and invisible power that accrues to men in a society based on a gender hierarchy. This is hard to identify and address. Challenges to gender entitlement are usually instigated by women. One husband describes his early enlight-enment. “When we first got married I thought I could make the decisions on money. But, I quickly learned we need to talk things over.” Another husband says, “Sometimes she’ll just be like, I cooked dinner last night, it’s your turn, and I’ll be in there cooking it up.” Once the men in our study became conscious of their gender entitlement, they consciously worked at remaining aware. “I have to remind myself that this is my house, these are my dishes, this is my baby just as much as hers,” explains one husband.


Lihua, a postgender wife at the time of the interview, describes how she handled male privilege early in the marriage. “He would expect me to do traditional things. I don’t know what kind of dreamland he was living in. But we worked out the kinks in that.” In contrast, gender legacy wives and traditional couples, especially in 1982, said they gave up trying to challenge their husband’s power. “After awhile,” says Bette, “you know how he’s going to respond. It’s just not worth it anymore.”

Development of new competencies. As partners move into equal relationship structures, most of them, especially the men, acquire new competencies for which they had not been socialized and that go beyond the qualities by which good women and men were evaluated in the past. Joan, for example, brought into her marriage a clear vision of the different kind of dad she wanted for her children. “I want them to see the dad showing as much interest in them and being as much a part of their lives as the mom. And I know he has to work at it, but I’m glad he is.” By the time of the interview her husband Juan had become sensitized to inequality in the marriages of many of his friends. “You hear stories of all the selfishness that goes on . . . You know the wife is doing all the work and you are just being a parent when you want to. That’s not fair.” Brian, another postgender father in the study, talks about how he is trying to improve his skill in the areas of emotional expression and support. He says he is still “a little more dense when it comes to analyzing somebody else’s emotions.” His wife Lisa helps him out. “So if he does not clearly understand my emotional state, I will tell him.”

Mutual attention to relationships and family tasks. Movement toward equality is reinforced when both partners consistently pay attention to their relationship. Postgender couples consciously attempt to be sensitive to the other’s physical and emotional states and provide emotional and other supports. The process of doing this is often by trial and error. “We are both always trying to do for the other. So, we kind of come up with things and if it works we stick with it, and if it doesn’t work you change it and make it work.” The father of a new baby expressed his willingness to stay home if that would have furthered his wife’s career. “If she had gotten her promotion, I would have asked for a leave of absence. I want her to be successful and happy in her work.”

This mutual attention to each other may explain why postgender mothers are less likely than the others to talk about having no personal time. For example, Louise, Jose’s wife and a working mother of two young children, maintains her workout time. “I have my dedication to working out and I have my four days that I go—and on the weekends too.”

DISCUSSION AND CLINICAL IMPLICATIONS

This research shows that there is widespread interest in marital equality among many different types of couples, at least among those in which both partners are willing to be interviewed about their personal lives. Although the qualitative design does not allow generalizations about the frequency with which couples are able to achieve equality, we found movement toward it in the various ethnic/racial groups included in this study and in both the 1982 and 2001 interview sets. The study adds to a growing body of literature that suggests that most couples drift into unequal gender relationships, even though they say they want and have equality (e.g. Deutsch, 1999; Hochschild, 1989). The uniqueness of this study is that it helps make visible the process through which couples overcome these pressures and move toward greater marital equality.

Although considerably more research is needed to fully understand the factors that stimulate change, this study points to a number of things clinicians can do to facilitate movement toward equality. Given that nearly all contemporary couples value equality, these suggestions apply to couples in all three categories. Postgender couples need help sustaining equality in the face of societal pulls that make it difficult. Gender legacy couples need help overcoming ingrained gender patterns that limit their ability to achieve the equality they say they want. Our study also makes it clear that many traditional couples are also deeply concerned about equality. They need help identifying ways gendered relational patterns limit them in ways they do not intend. The results of this study suggest the following clinical implications:

1. Couples in all three categories expressed awareness of gender expectations. Many couples, however, unwittingly used gender as an explanation or rationale for behavior that reinforced


old gender patterns. Couples who were more aware of the ways in which gender continued to frame and limit their family options were more able to move toward marital equality. Therapists, therefore, must be cautious about using gender explanations in ways that suggest that men and women are bound by these patterns. Therapists can also be helpful in an educational role that makes visible ways that many couples are unnecessarily limited by old gender constraints and expectations. Traditional couples also benefit from this kind of discussion. Some traditional men in our study were very concerned about how to use their power, how to be emotionally involved in family life, and how to ease the burdens on their wives.

2. Therapists are well situated to help couples actively negotiate their relationships and to become more comfortable and skilled in dealing with conflict. This includes helping partners recognize the ways that invisible or latent power in the relationship may keep some topics or possibilities from discussion. Therapists also need to be alert for the possibility that some clients may avoid expressing opinions or showing personality aspects that are not supported by traditional expectations for their gender. Given that couples frequently drift into gender-stereotyped patterns by default, it is also helpful to ask couples how taken-for-granted relationship patterns and structures were decided.

3. Therapists can also challenge gender entitlements. In our practice, we find that when unequal relationship processes are made visible within the course of therapy and couples are asked if these patterns fit their relational ideals, most couples say no. Although there are exceptions, most men, even traditional ones, seem unwilling to endorse male entitlements overtly. As these entitlements give way and men begin to change behaviors and grapple with underlying emotions, they may require empathic and persistent support over time.

4. When therapists expect that both women and men can develop new competencies, they can encourage partners to recognize competencies they already have but have not really developed and then reinforce and elaborate them. Although these skills will vary from person to person, a man, for example, might work to expand his ability to be more attentive and vulnerable, whereas a woman might work on becoming more assertive and cognizant of her strengths and goals. Both might need to be supported in doing tasks in which they do not already feel competent or natural.

5. Therapists can help men, as well as women, attend to their relationship and partner on a consistent basis. Men in our study frequently described their frustration about and lack of skill in this area and will need guidance and support as they overcome deeply embedded socialization equating sensitivity and emotionality with femininity and weakness.

6. A focus on equality as a process rather than an ideological endpoint gives therapists a useful framework for working with couples in each category of gender organization. The four aspects of equality we include in our definition give useful starting points for work with most couples. Increased accommodation of each other, increased attention to each other, and concern about improving the well being of each partner will take couples a long way toward greater marital satisfaction and stability. An exploration with partners of the kind of relationship status they each want and what equal status means to them opens avenues for discussion and negotiation.

Although the above suggestions are easily put to use within most models of family therapy, application requires conscious and intentional action. A recent analysis of American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy Master Series tapes showed that though therapists tended to promote the ideal of mutuality, few were attentive to empowering clients to resist gender-based expectations (Haddock, McPhee, & Zimmerman, 2001). The authors suggest that this may be, in part, due to the therapists’ own gender social-ization and to the unavailability of concrete guidance and practical strategies within their training. The practices outlined above help to overcome this deficit.

Our diagram (Figure 1) also includes a theoretical arrow from nongendered family organization back to the institutional level. The logic is that as families move beyond gender they and their children reinforce behaviors that promote gender equality in other institutions beyond the family, thus ultimately undermining the old gender hierarchy. Studies connecting this kind of family environment with a child’s


adult gender attitudes and child rearing practices could be very interesting. How does the development of new competencies on the part of both men and women qualitatively change the marital relationship and family life? How does it change the way children are raised and view gender identities?

Marital and family therapists can play a pivotal role in promoting gender equality. We need to conduct the research that provides answers to questions about how couples achieve equality and translate that research into education and clinical practices that stimulate change.

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MOVING BEYOND GENDER: PROCESSES THAT CREATE RELATIONSHIP EQUALITY

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