Gender and Emotional Communication in Marriage

This article focuses on the issue of whether gender differences in responses to emotional situations involving high levels of marital conflict can best be explained in terms of a deficit in either male or female functioning, males and females being socialized into different cultures, or the differential social power assigned to males and females. These different conceptualizations of gender differences are examined, and relevant research findings are presented. The issue is then discussed with particular reference to the demand-withdraw pattern in marriage, and the question is raised whether males withdraw from marital conflict primarily because they have difficulty dealing with conflict and the accompanying physiological arousal, because they have been socialized to resist pressure from others and to maintain independence, or because withdrawing is the best way of exerting power. The article concludes that the withdrawal behavior adopted by men during high levels of marital conflict does appear to enable them to maintain power in the relationship but that more work is needed before the different ways that men and women deal with conflict are fully understood.