How Gender Affects Relationship Expectations

How Gender Affects Relationship Expectations

By: Amber Oxyer

Sociology 487 – Assignment #4

11:30 Recitation

Introduction

Men and women have different opinions about nearly everything from what to do on Saturday night to whether they should get married. It’s no wonder that men and women have such trouble making things work, when they often enter into relationships with very different expectations and assumptions of how the relationship will work. I decided to do my research based on how men and women view certain relationship aspects, and compare them to see if men and women are going into relationships with conflicting expectations.

Research on why or how relationships work is what drives sociology. One of the most important types of relationship is that between a woman and a man, because it eventually affects offspring and the next generation. Not to mention the importance of courting relationships are something everyone can relate to and will probably want to know more about.

Conceptual Framework

When I began my research I saw that many relationships around me were ending because of the different expectations men and women had placed on their partners before the relationship had even begun. So I chose four topics that I thought seemed to be the most important in the difference between gender expectations; Desired relationship length, Time-commitment required before the initiation of a sexual relationship, Desired qualities in a partner, and the traditionally desired roles that men and women play.

First I wanted to know if the desired length of relationship varied between males and females. Popular culture focuses on a woman’s need for quality relationships (long-term), and men’s desire for quantity of relationships (many relationships of short duration). According to Geoffrey C Urbaniak and Peter R Kilmann (2003) “Men acknowledged that physical attractiveness was the most important characteristic that influenced their ratings of a desired partner. Women rated desired level of relationship commitment as the most important factor that influenced their mate selection.” But this question of desired relationship length is decided by many things, one of which may be gender. Nuray Sakalli-Ugurlu argued that “Having a set of beliefs about how men and women should behave in a romantic relationship might exert a strong influence on future plans and expectations…” I conceptualized that desired relationship length is based on an individuals personal beliefs, obtained information, and obligation to gender roles. And I decided to measure this by questioning both men and women about what their desired relationship length would be.

Secondly I wondered if the time commitment required before the initiation of a sexual relationship differed among men and women.Women are assumed to want more of a commitment than men before entering into a physical relationship because they have more at stake if a pregnancy were to result. However, with the widespread use of birth control women have more options and more independence. Women today are more independent and career oriented than ever before and they too may be looking for short-term companionship and not a future husband and provider. I think the outcome will show that more women will prefer a longer period of time in a relationship before initiation but that the gap between men and women won’t be very far apart. I conceptualized that sexual expectations are acquired through personal experience, and societal gender norms. I decided the best way to measure this would be to ask participants what they feel an appropriate time-commitment would be before initiation of a sexual relationship.

Third I asked the question “Do women and men desire different emotional qualities in a partner?” There are some qualities that both men and women will want in a partner such as caring or considerateness, but I thought it would be interesting to study how each gender would choose between a list of distinct equal and opposite qualities, one of each being a feminine quality and one being a masculine quality. Logic would say that some expectations may differ greatly. According to Dindia and Allen, (1992) “Women are more disclosing than men, particularly on more personal and more feeling oriented topics”. And Rebecca Gardyn and Pamela Paul (2001) also say “81 percent (of women in their 20’s) say it is more important for them to have a husband who can communicate about his deepest feelings than one who makes a good living.” But men’s relationships may not be as open and honest, and more based on physical interaction, (i.e., tossing a football as opposed to talking over coffee.) Desired qualities in a mate may correspond with gender roles in the assumption that both genders are obligated to bring a certain set of qualities to the table. Men are expected to be solid, calm, and problem solvers, while women are expected to be gentle, but emotional, and submissive. I conceptualized that desired qualities are those which individuals feel are most important for their mate to have and therefore bring to the relationships, most of which are based on gender roles (masculinity vs. femininity). I felt the best way to measure this would be a question asking respondents to chose between two equal and opposite qualities, one being feminine and one being masculine, to see if they desire the traditional qualities of the opposite sex.

Last I wanted to if participants would desire the traditional gender roles of the opposite sex. There are societal based gender-roles men and women associate with personally and ones that they associate with a desired mate. In the 50’s the structure of the relationship and family was very different from today. A woman was desired if she was seen as a nurturer, housewife, social organizer, etc, while men who were breadwinners and protectors were seen as most desirable. With gender-roles blurred and women no longer relying on a husband for security I believe this question is one that should be researched often. Gender roles play a large part in how partners perceive a desired mate, and desired roles they would like their mate to play. “According to the social-role theory of mate selection, to the extent that women and men occupy marital, familial, and occupational roles that entail different responsibilities and obligations, they would select mates according to criteria that reflect these divergent responsibilities and obligations” (Johannesen-Schmidt and Eagly, 2002). I conceptualized that desired relationship roles (i.e., protector, nurturer, breadwinner, household organizer) are based on societal standards and gender roles imposed on self, and those desired in a partner

From this research I came up with four testable hypothosis: 1) Women will perceive the desired relationship length to be longer than Men. 2) Men will have more sexual expectations sooner than women, based on gender norms of men being more sexually driven than females. 3) Individuals will desire a mate who has the emotional qualities associated with the gender role, of the gender they are attracted to. 4) Individuals will desire a partner who fits those relationship roles which are based on the traditional roles of the opposite gender

Methodology

Each participant was asked his or her desired length of relationship, and then given six answers to choose from, ranging from one date to six months and beyond. The gender which desires a longer relationship will be considered more prone to commitment. This kind of question would normally be measured ordinally but the results from the crosstabs test showed a stronger correlation and showed a wider variety of results to conclude from. Secondly, both genders will be asked what they believe is an appropriate length of time to wait before an initial sexual encounter. The gender with the lesser length of time required will be considered more sexually driven in relationships. As with the first question on desired length, this question could have been measured ordinally but also had results that could draw more conclusions nominally with crosstabs. Third, each participant will be given three questions regarding desired characteristics (lettered A, B, and C). For each letter they will chose between one female quality and one male quality (ex: Strong or Sensitive.) Those emotional qualities will show whether one gender desires qualities which were associated generally with the opposite sex, and will also be measured nominally. And the final question will be set up much like the third with each participant circling one option of the 2 for each of letters A B and C. This final question will decide whether participants are more likely to desire their partner to portray roles most associated with traditional roles of the opposite sex. This final question will also be measured nominally as well.

On the actual survey I placed the general questions at the top because there were not many, and when I take surveys I like to get the boring stuff out of the way first. One of these general questions asked which gender the participant currently dated between men, women, or both. This was important because any participant dating the same sex as themselves may skew the data. Although “gender” and “which gender currently dating” were the only questions I needed at the top, I also had age, and marital status, incase I wanted a better picture of the population. I put the questions of “desired length”, and “sexual initiation” next to each other because they were set up in the same way, and I did the same for the questions of “desired qualities” and “desired roles”, both of which had 3 parts because I did not feel just one comparison would show enough variance.

I did a pretest 3 days before handing out my survey, and it was given to 2 classmates. Both wrote in that they felt there should be another option in the “sexual initiation” question, between one week and one month. Originally both “desired length” and “desired initiation time” had identical options underneath, but I added in the option they suggested of 2-3 weeks, giving “initiation” seven options.

My biggest problem became finding feminine words ands masculine words that were both equal and opposite enough. When choosing which words I wanted to use in my survey, I wanted to find words that were distinctly male and female, but that either sex may chose. For example “too self-disclosed or too closed-off”. Both are things someone may find annoying in a partner, so they would need to decide if they could stand someone who talked too much more or less than someone who spoke to little. A “good-listener” is no better or worse than a “good problem-solver” it just comes down to which a particular person prefers. I went through at least 200 words using a thesaurus and handed revised surveys to friends until I found 6 matches I thought would work well.

My sampling procedure was nonprobablity convenience sampling, because I chose the closest and most convenient place to hand out the survey, my classes. It was quick, cheap, and well organized because I got all my surveys done at once, and because sociology students are used to surveys, so they were more willing to take the survey than people passing on the street. I felt this technique was the best for my research because it gave me a larger sample to work with, and since my goal was to use mostly young people who were aware of their relationship choices the classes were a good choice. Obviously a potential disadvantage would be that sociology students have taken quite a few surveys and are going to be able to see exactly what results you’re looking for. And in the Soc 430 class, Sociology of Family, the students would most likely have more of an interest in family and partner values, than the people I may have surveyed on the street.

My survey was given to a Sociology 430 class titled Sociology of Family. I knew that I wanted a large number of respondents at once, and also ones that were interested enough to take the survey. This sociology class had around 100 students, but only maybe 60 were in attendance, with a large number of those being women. So I handed out my other 40 surveys in a Sociology 488 class. I assumed the populations would be nearly the same, both sociology major classes, but with the 488 class I would be able to survey a lot more males.

While testing my wording on friends, I stumbled onto another method of gathering data, so I decided to try it out but only out of curiosity. Some of my friends were helping me out by taking my test surveys over email. I decided to forward the final survey to all my friends, and tell them to forward it to their friends as well. I guess the survey would then be considered a snowball-email survey. I also sent the survey through three listservs (Undergraduate Student Government at OSU, a Philosophy Pop Topics list, and a Sociology list). Each email had the survey attached and the subject line “Sociological Survey –Just 2 Minutes”; along with a short note asking that they please forward the email to anyone they think might take it. I got nearly 150 responses in the first week, and another 30 the second week, again mostly from women, but men were much more willing to send an anonymous email than I thought. I sent a thank you email to everyone who participated (I spent 3 hours sending thank you notes one day, but thank goodness for cut and paste), and I wrote that they were free to continue forwarding, and that if they wanted a copy of the results when they were finished to send me email with the subject line “Survey Results.”

Although I was thrilled with the snowball-email response, For the purpose of this research paper I will ONLY be using the results obtained from the actual paper surveys I gave out in classes. However I will be using all of the data, which includes around 150 female and 70 male responses, on another report which I’ll be emailing to all those who inquired about my results, and posting the results on my website. Also because of the snowball-email I received 15 surveys of those who identified as being attracted to the same gender, which might be enough to do another smaller study, which I wasn’t able to do from the data I received in classes.

The main problem with my survey involved the last two questions. The survey asked the respondent to circle one answer for each letter, and there were three letters given. There should have been three circled answers, but many people circle both options on one letter, or they only circled one option out of all six possibilities. I was very lucky that women misunderstood these questions more than men because I needed as many male respondents as possible. I had 97 classroom respondents, 40 men and 57 women. There were 4 (2 male and 2 female) respondents who identified as dating the same sex, and these were removed because they could skew the data. Only three men misunderstood the survey and so I removed those them, but nineteen women misunderstood the questionnaire. This left me with 36 viable female respondents, so I removed one female respondent randomly (I just pulled one out of the middle without looking) in order to have an equal number of 35 men, and 35 women.

I would say the questions did not seem intrusive to most because of those who filled out the questionnaire correctly none wrote in the margins. One woman checked the box indicating she did not want to date currently, and then for the question of time-commitment required before sexual initiation she wrote in N/A but still checked the box next to six months or beyond. All the fallowing questionnaires were removed because responses weren’t found. There were 3 people who did not understand what “Too Self-disclosed” meant when it was compared to “Too Closed-off” in question 7 b). Two women were removed because they wrote in “Both” instead of choosing between two qualities. One woman wrote in “vague question: actual sex or any kind of promiscuity?” next to the question asking what time-commitment was required before the initiation of a sexual relationship. And one female wrote in “Virgin, Won’t Ever”, to the same question of initiation.

I feel the classroom surveys were conducted in a very ethical way. Respondents remained completely anonymous because the surveys were collected in bundles. And I don’t feel any of the questions were invasive enough to harm someone’s feelings or change their opinion of themselves.

Coding Data

My question regarding “preferred length of relationship” had six time length options, which spanned from one night (option 1) to six months or beyond (option 6). My question regarding “time-commitment required before sexual initiation” was coded much the same way, with numbers 1-7. For both the question regarding “desired qualities” and the one regarding “desired roles”, I used the same method of coding the male quality/role as 1, and the female quality/role as 2.