Making the Connection: Single Women's Use of the Telephone in Dating Relationships With Men

The telephone is an important medium for constituting, maintaining, and terminating personal relationships that has been practically ignored by social scientists. This study remedies a notable gap in the fields of sociology and communication in regard to the social functions of the telephone. Dating relationships were used as the social context for examining telephone communication to understand women's negotiation of gender and power revolving around the telephone. In-depth interviews were conducted with a sample of 25 single women in dating relationships. The interviews revealed distinct patterns of telephone use resulting from the women's perception of the balance of power in their relationships, their expectations of the relationships, and their expectations of gender in our culture. The study concludes that women use the telephone to exert control and power within their dating relationships, but that this control and power are confined by the cultural belief that a woman ought to have a man without pursuing one aggressively.