Aligning Mars and Venus

Aligning Mars and Venus: The Social Construction and Instability of Gender Differences in Romantic Relationships

This journal intended to establish whether women’s and men’s behavior were varied in terms of what they wanted and/or received in the context of a heterosexual romantic relationship and the reasons for the differences. Three studies were carried out and the predicted outcome as identified by the authors was that the differences would be minimal or inconsistent.

Study 1

The first study utilized the four subscales of Desired Loving Behavior Scale (DLBS) to test whether there was a difference between genders in terms of their ratings on relationship support, caring actions, sex, and scripting (verbal behavior). It tested Hypothesis 1 which asserts that women would have higher scores on the scripting, caring actions, and relationship support subscales and lower scores on the sex subscale. The population of this study comprised of 30 men and 52 women whose mean age was 19.25 years.

Participants were asked what they would have wanted their partners to say or do so as to make them feel more loved. The hypothesis was tested using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) so as to check against family-wise error. A follow-up was then conducted using Bonferroni-corrected t-tests to assess the precise locations of gender differences on each of the four DLBS subscales. In both tests, gender was the independent variable while the four subscales of DLBS were the dependent variables. The results indicate that the only difference observed was on the relationship scale where women reported greater desire than men. The hypothesis was therefore partially supported. The research findings can be interpreted to mean that support for gender similarities was larger than that of gender differences. Therefore, men and women are more similar than dissimilar.

Study 2

100 men and 40 women, with a mean age of 21.19 years took part in this...