CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDER IN PARTNERSHIP NARRATIVES
CONSTRUCTIONS OF GENDER IN PARTNERSHIP NARRATIVES

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents the results of a study focusing on the construction of virtual partnerships according to two basic gender stereotype parameters—where the personality traits of the characters in the partnership are given in advance: each partner was made either rational or emotional, and either dominant or submissive. Three scenarios were used. The first one, a dominant and rational male in a relationship with a submissive and emotional woman, reflects the classical gender stereotyped beliefs about the psychological characteristics of men and women. In the other two scenarios, we combined the various character types to ensure an equal spread of dominance and submissiveness, always matched with inverse rationality-emotionality versus the traditional gender stereotype, i.e. man as emotional and woman as rational. Each scenario was created by three independent focus groups (N=40, 4-6 participants in each group). The analysis of the discussions indicates that the dimensions of dominance-submissiveness and rationality-emotionality interact in narrative constructions; the dominance dimension is superior to the dimension of rationality in terms of the potential for making decisions about the future of the relationship. The expected functioning of these dimensions is usually independent of their (both female and male) bearers. At the same time, both men and women are easily imagined and described as consistent human beings when they are either dominant and rational or submissive and emotional, while the mixed characteristics (dominance with emotionality or rationality with submissiveness) are difficult to imagine as part of one functioning entity.

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