Week 12: Post 1

This chapter was incredibly relevant to me. I gained some great incite from the chapter as I am getting married in the next year. In reading the chapter, I fell in love with a quote "All humans seek intimacy, lifelong. Claiming that men are from Mars and women are from Venus ignores reality: People are from Earth (Hyde, 2007)" (Berger, 526). This is exactly how my thinking was when I took the survey for exercise 1 of the discussion. I felt that men and women think oppositely about relationships and I was basing my thoughts off of what society says. The text discusses social norms of men. It is not socially acceptable to discuss "failures, emotional problems, and relationship dilemmas; if they do they expect practical advice, not sympathy." Women spill it all and receive support and sympathy back (Berger, 527). I find it interesting that male-females relationships are on the rise. I say this because it is not socially acceptable for men to talk to other men about life issues. Does this make it socially acceptable for a man to confide in a female friend for support and advice? Another question I have is how often do men resort to women for advice? I feel that women still look to women for an ear and a shoulder. In an article I found, the researchers found that in their study, women rely heavily on their friendships as there is a high occurrence of trust and closeness. They also mentioned that women expect more out of their friendships than men do and men expect friendship to involve shared interests. Heterosexual friendships enhance people's lives, offer different perspectives, and still offer social support. This type of friendship is influenced by culture. Some issues from cultural influences including media influences of sex and romanticizing their relationships in cross-gender relationships. In the study they found that 30-45% of college student friendships are cross-gendered (Felmlee, Sweet, Sinclair, 2012). I think it is interesting that the percentage is so high in the article involving college students, but the text mentioned that there are issues with cross-gender relationships in married or dating couples because of the issue of jealousy.

Berger, K. S. (2011) The Developing Person Through the Life Span. New York: Worth Publishers. 

Felmlee, D., Sweet, E., & Sinclair, H. H. (2012). Gender Rules: Same- and Cross-Gender Friendships Norms. Sex Roles, 66(7/8), 518-529. doi:10.1007/s11199-011-0109-z