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Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 49, No. 3, 1993. pp. 71-85
Traditional Gender Roles: Do They Make, and Then Break, our Relationships?
William Ickes
University of Texas at Arlington
Despite societal pressure for change in traditional gender roles, the coevolution of genes and culture may still lead us to be attracted to poteraial mates whose appearance and behavior is stereotypicaUy masculine or feminine. This attraction is ironic in light of a growing body of research evidence indicating that the relationships of men and women with traditional gender roles are far from optimal—and are generally worse than those of androgynous men and women. These seemingly paradoxical findings may reflect the conflict between what our genes and past culture dispose us to do and what our present culture prescribes. When men and women play out in their own behavior the respective masculine and feminine gender roles that have traditionally been prescribed by their culture, do their close relationships benefit or suffer? In this article, I propose that, in this period of changing gender role expectations, both types of effects occur. When men and women first meet, their enactment of traditionail gender roles may benefit their relationship by promoting mutual attraction and facilitating the mutual perception that the other is a potentially desirable mate. Ironically, however, the seeds of these relationships may contain their own pwison. From even their earliest encounters, the partners' respective enactment of their traditional gender roles may begin to undermine their relationship by fostering the kind of female/male miscommunication that has recently been documented by writers such as Henley and Kramarae (1991), Maltz and Borker (1982), and Tannen (1987, 1990). Perhaps as a consequence of this miscommunication, men and women with traditional gender roles will also tend to describe their relationThe author would like to thank Arthur Aron. Val Derlaga, Martha Mann, Susan
Traditional Gender Roles: Do They Make, and Then Break, our Relationships?
William Ickes
University of Texas at Arlington
Despite societal pressure for change in traditional gender roles, the coevolution of genes and culture may still lead us to be attracted to poteraial mates whose appearance and behavior is stereotypicaUy masculine or feminine. This attraction is ironic in light of a growing body of research evidence indicating that the relationships of men and women with traditional gender roles are far from optimal—and are generally worse than those of androgynous men and women. These seemingly paradoxical findings may reflect the conflict between what our genes and past culture dispose us to do and what our present culture prescribes. When men and women play out in their own behavior the respective masculine and feminine gender roles that have traditionally been prescribed by their culture, do their close relationships benefit or suffer? In this article, I propose that, in this period of changing gender role expectations, both types of effects occur. When men and women first meet, their enactment of traditionail gender roles may benefit their relationship by promoting mutual attraction and facilitating the mutual perception that the other is a potentially desirable mate. Ironically, however, the seeds of these relationships may contain their own pwison. From even their earliest encounters, the partners' respective enactment of their traditional gender roles may begin to undermine their relationship by fostering the kind of female/male miscommunication that has recently been documented by writers such as Henley and Kramarae (1991), Maltz and Borker (1982), and Tannen (1987, 1990). Perhaps as a consequence of this miscommunication, men and women with traditional gender roles will also tend to describe their relationThe author would like to thank Arthur Aron. Val Derlaga, Martha Mann, Susan