Narratives of Chilean women about heterosexual couple relationships: between hierarchical and egalitarian models

Abstract

Gender studies have approached heterosexual couple relationships from a feminist analytical framework that operates on the binomial of domination and submission. In Chile, power relations have been identified in the heterosexual couple in the opposition between the traditional hierarchical and modern egalitarian models. From the analysis of a qualitative study on Chilean women, it is proposed that both do not operate as action models but as sociocultural meanings on the transformations in gender relations. Women elaborate a narrative about them that provides a framework of understanding of their own experiences, mainly through reading about couple relationships from two main axes: male domination and female submission represented by previous generations, and the evaluation of men in the couple from maleness as an indicator of power hierarchies.