Sex, Money and the Kitchen Sink: Power in Same-Sex Couple Relationships

Abstract

While there has been notable sociological concern with the themes of power, equality and inequality in couple relationships, the focus has almost exclusively been on heterosexual couples. At an empirical level a large body of work has focused on the intimate and domestic lives of men and women, and this suggests that gender relations, particularly within ‘the home’, continue to be marked and structured by inequalities with regard to labour and status (for discussions of change in this context see VanEvery, 1995; Benjamin and Sullivan, 1996). The limited research available on same-sex relationships emphasizes the difference between heterosexual and non-heterosexual relationships in this regard. In brief, it is suggested that members of same-sex couples are allowed to remain free of the traditional ‘entrapments’ of feminine/masculine stereotypes, and in the absence of conventions and guidelines are faced with the opportunity and possibility of developing more egalitarian relationships (for a review of the literature on same-sex couples see Weeks et al ., 1996). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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