"If She's Your Wife, Who's the Husband?": Exploring Perceived Gender Roles in Same Sex Relationships.

This paper will explore gender roles within the context of same sex relationships. Gender role stereotypes placed upon same sex relationships by society at large will be examined, including a history of such gender roles. Where do gender roles in same sex relationships come from, and how do they form? How do such gender roles function in same sex relationships today in comparison to those couples who came of age in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s? Is there a shift in domestic roles between these generations? This paper will utilize in depth, qualitative interviews using three case studies of same sex couples who came of age in the 1970s, the 1980s and 1990s and the millennium. The analysis of these interviews explores these cases in light of the literature which posits that during the period of gay mainstreaming, same sex relationships were portrayed as being much like their heterosexual counterparts and this normalization of heterosexual gender norms resulted in a perpetuation of these roles in same-sex relationships.