> >>The question is not merely academic. If same sex marriages were
> to be
> >>legalized, how would the issue of gender roles in such unions be
> >>resolved?
Frankly, I am dismayed, but not surprised, that the idea of equal partnership and gender diversity is so difficult for so many to grasp.
The assumption that there must be one that acts as male and one that acts as female in place-holder gender roles has to be discarded for a greater diversity that includes cross-gender and same-gender combinations that work as well as traditional gender role-playing.
My partner and I are what some would call "lipstick lesbians" with no one person "wearing the pants" as it were in the household, even though both of us have strong personalities. We both cringe at the thought of having to use power tools or, conversely, sewing machines.
She waxes, I pluck, eyebrows. By the conventional wisdom of many, including some in the gltb community, we should not be a match at all, and yet we are doing quite well.
That we are both educated, urban professionals who make a good combined income certainly affords us the opportunity and intellectual freedom to live out our gender roles comfortably. Both of us are in high-stress environments dominated by men. Both of us are aggressive in what we do. Perhaps the gender roles are just displaced from the homefront and are, instead, split along office lines. The need for the "male" hunter-gatherer, warrior side of the partnership is satisfied for both of us by our personalities at work; the "female" nurturing, care-giving side of the partnership flourishes and is satisfied at home. There is still a male/female gender role model, but it is skewed differently from the traditional pattern of male/female in total.
- Deborah R.