The maintenance of gender inequality in South African tertiary educated heterosexual couples

ABSTRACT

Gender equality has been found to benefit individual and couple well-being. However, much of what is known about the uptake of gender equality ideas in intimate heterosexual relationships is based on individual data from tertiary educated groups in the global North. South African research has also relied on individual data, but has predominantly utilized low socio-economic status samples. Locally, research is therefore needed that employs dyadic data, and specifically targets higher socio-economic and tertiary educated couples who are more likely to have been exposed to and adopt gender equality ideas. Subsequently, using a feminist social constructionist framework, we explored gender constructions by interviewing 14 heterosexual university student couples about gender ideas and practices in their relationships. We used an inductive thematic analysis method to analyze the dyadic interview data. We found that the couples were aware and supportive of gender equality, and portrayed themselves as having transcended gender inequality. However, we identified restrictive traditional gender constructions which were unseen, or deemed chosen or harmless by the participants. We conclude that more needs to be done to create awareness of, and challenge these unproblematised gender ideas amongst higher socio-economic groups that may believe that they have transcended gender inequality in relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• Heterosexual romantic relationships
• university students
• gender
• gender equality
• higher education
• South Africa

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Research Foundation: [Grant Number CSRP170527234149].