Relational resources, gender consciousness and possibilities of change in marital relationships

Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan

Abstract
Investigating the possibilities of change in marital relationships, we argue, involves examining the interplay of gender consciousness, relational resources and material circumstances in their concrete, interactional manifestations. The attempt to address this interface is grounded in the idea that understanding gender relations necessarily involves both institutional and interactional dimensions. While much research has been devoted to the inuence of material or structural resources on indicators such as the domestic division of labour, relatively little direct attention has been given to the issue of differing relational or interpersonal resources. We use a multi-method approach based on interviews with women in different occupations to analyse possibilities of change in marital communication and the domestic division of labour in relation both to womens material and to their relational resources. We conclude that a combination of increased gender consciousness and the development of particular inter-personal skills facilitates negotiation and change in the boundaries regulating both communication and the domestic division of labour within the marital relationship.

Introduction
For many years now there has been an interest among sociologists in the extent to which gender power relations in the home have been inuenced by womens increased access to social and material resources. The feminist argument that access to independent resources is a major condition for the liberation of women constitutes a signicant theme of this debate. For example, Marx-Ferree argued (1988, 1991) that access to material resources acts as an important leverage in womens power position at home and a major
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Relational resources condition in the enabling of marital negotiation. In the same vein Hartmann suggested that womens increasing economic independence will create high levels of domestic conict around their efforts to raise their male partners levels of domestic participation (Hartmann, 1981). Such suggestions encouraged several feminist researchers to undertake the project of exploring the domestic sphere in order to trace the development of conict or negotiation in this area. Particularly well-known in this respect are the studies of Komter in the Netherlands (1989); Brannen and Moss in England (1991); and Berk (1985), Hochschild (1989) and DeVault (1990, 1991) in the USA. All of these studies focused, as part of their more general scope, on employed mothers and their attitudes, thoughts or feelings around the domestic division of labour. In fact, what all of them reported were very low levels of domestic negotiation, and these results were backed up by a range of theoretical explanations for the relative absence of change in gender relations in the home. All of these explanations (with the exception of Komter, 1989), directed their attention to the dynamics of the husband-wife relationship, and the production of femininity and masculinity through traditional domestic arrangements. Together with a range of other studies (eg Thompson and Walker, 1989; Mederer, 1993; Thompson, 1993), these studies therefore contributed to the recognition that change in structural conditions does not translate in simple ways into domestic divisions of family labour, and that changes in womens employment commitments, for example, has at best a limited mediating inuence on levels of mens participation. On the other hand, there is increasing evidence recently to suggest that some structural factors, such as the duration of a womans full-time work commitment, can indeed lead to longitudinal adjustments between partners in the domestic division of labour over time (Gershuny, 1995). These conicting ndings have been difcult to reconcile, in the face of research which has shown a stubborn persistency in womens almost exclusive responsibility for aspects of performance and management of domestic tasks, and which, moreover, has revealed the complexity of an emotional situation in which structural factors alone do not play the most signicant role. In this paper we attempt to give recognition to the interconnectedness of dimensions of power, intimacy and housework by conceptualising possibilities of change in both marital communication and the domestic division of labour in relation both to womens material and relational resources.
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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan In particular, we develop the argument that, for some groups of women, exposure to what we call therapeutic discourse (see below) in both their professional and personal lives can promote both an enhancement of gender consciousness (Gerson and Peiss, 1985), and the development of particular inter-personal skills. This combination of increased gender consciousness and inter-personal skills in turn facilitates negotiation and change in the boundaries regulating both communication and the domestic division of labour within the marital relationship. The change referred to in the title is thus conceived of as womens success in challenging normative scripts in both marital communication and the household division of labour.

Therapeutic discourse and gender consciousness

Therapeutic discourse in the sense in which we use it is taken to refer to part of the wider ideological environment, and encompasses a range of practices and media at both the professional and popular level: individual therapy and counselling; group or family therapy; self-enhancing workshops; self-help books, tapes and videos; media shows and advisory services. A major message of therapeutic discourse is that people can develop and improve the inter-personal skills which they use within their relationships. It is claimed, for example, that people are able to learn how to talk; how to communicate their feelings; how to change their feelings; and how to manage situations so as to maintain the sense of being in control. As explained by Cancian and Gordon (1987) such messages are signicant in enabling feminist ideas regarding direct conict and womens empowerment to be brought into the intimate situation. Direct and indirect reference to these aspects of the wider discursive environment can be found in the work of many authors. Along with criticism directed at its origins in individualistic utilitarianism (see, for instance, Bellah, 1985; Swidler, 1985), one can also nd within this literature a recognition of the potential for a facilitation of change embedded within therapeutic discourse. For example, Illouz makes the claim that what she terms the therapeutic ethos should not only be understood in terms of the pervasive inuence of individualism, but also as providing a dimension of self-observation and self-knowledge (1991: 240). Crawford (1995) writes of the self-help industry: The quest for self-transformation encouraged by individualistic social science does, at least, give women the message that Your 796
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Relational resources life is yours to control. And this belief may be necessary and empowering for anyone committed to change. (Crawford, 1995: 179) A similar message is to be found in Giddens (1991), where he argues that therapy can be seen as an expression of generalised reexivity, which should be evaluated as a methodology of life-planning. It represents a means by which the individual may acquire a more developed self-understanding, and be able to harmonise present concerns and future projects with a psychological inheritance from the past (p. 180). Thus, womens access to expert systems or bodies of knowledge can equip them with new perceptions of self and a new awareness about relations with others. With perhaps a more direct reference to the theme of this paper Cancian (1987) argues that what she terms the human potential movement has had a signicant impact on culture in the United States, facilitating the development of new blueprints of intimate relationships, based on images of androgynous love. So we suggest that, embedded in the emphasis within therapeutic discourse on open and change-orientated communication, lie some signicant potential pathways to the development of enhanced gender consciousness, dened according to Gerson and Peisss 1985 formulation. In their approach gender consciousness can be thought of as a continuum along which a generalized gender awareness is succeeded by a consciousness of the rights associated with specic gender locations within a given system. This in turn implies a reciprocal inuence on the generation of these rights in social interaction, which might be either reactionary or progressive in nature. Finally, a clearly articulated challenge to the existing system of gender relations may emerge, containing an explicit commitment to change. Gender consciousness is thus, according to Thompson (1993), central to whether or not partners, particularly women, push for change (p. 566). It may be regarded as a critical enabling element in the desire for the transformation of the normative boundaries which regulate gender relations (see Potuchek, 1992). Gerson and Peiss have stressed the need for more research on how such consciousness develops or recedes and other writers have drawn attention to the link between changing norms of intimacy and the growth of what we have called therapeutic discourse (see Giddens, 1991; Cancian, 1987).

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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan

Relational resources and negotiation of boundaries

In addition to the relationship at the wider level between the inuence of therapeutic discourse and an enabling gender consciousness, we might also consider that those with high and systematic exposure to therapeutic discourse may also develop specic interpersonal skills. Examples of such skills might include change-directed negotiating skills, the ability to express thoughts and feelings more clearly, and the controlled use of anger in conictual situations. In our analyses we use measures of such skills as operationalisations of the concept of relational resources, which we understand as the combination of the interpersonal and emotional skills and resources that individuals bring to a relationship. We argue that relational resources, like material resources, can act as important facilitators of change in aspects of intimate relationships (specically, in the empirical operationalisation of these concepts in this paper, in marital communication and the domestic division of labour). While much research has been devoted to the inuence of material or structural resources on indicators such as the domestic division of labour, relatively little direct attention has been given to the issue of differing relational resources. We argue that in order to investigate the possibilities of change in marital relationships we should in fact be examining the specic interplay of gender consciousness, relational resources and material circumstances in their concrete, interactional manifestations. With this model we attempt to bridge the different levels of analysis which are involved in any theoretical conceptualisation of gender relations, which are simultaneously and interpenetratingly constructed at the institutional level (shaping images and meanings of intimate relationships, cf: Cancian, 1987; Hochschild, 1989, 1990; Giddens, 1991, 1992; Illouz, 1991; Simonds, 1992) and negotiated within individual relationships. The attempt to address this interface is grounded in the idea that an understanding of possibilities of change in the sphere of gender relations necessarily involves both interactional and institutional dimensions: the gender perspective simultaneously emphasizes the symbolic and the structural . . . the interactional and institutional levels of analysis (Ferree, 1990: 868). However, despite widespread recognition of the theoretical importance of multidimensionality in the study of gender relations, empirical analyses which attempt to incorporate it are relatively rare in the literature, having tended to focus on either the interactional 798
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Relational resources or the institutional level. The empirical analyses presented here therefore involve both an investigation of the relational resources resulting from womens differential exposure to therapeutic discourse at the institutional level, and their interactional outcomes in respect of negotiation and change within the marital relationship. It is argued that women who have been exposed (through professional development activities, personal counselling, reading etc) to inuences at the institutional level which promote the development of reexivity and self-awareness in intimate relationships are more likely to have acquired the relational resources necessary to achieve the successful challenging of normative boundaries regulating both the communicative sphere within marriage (marital talk see Zvonkovich et al, 1996) and the material measure of the division of domestic labour. The importance of our theoretical conception of negotiation and boundaries in the marital relationship is also developed from Gerson and Peisss inuential article (Gerson and Peiss, 1985). Negotiation in this approach relates to the way in which women and men, from an initial base of resources, bargain for privileges and resources. This notion of negotiation is twinned in Gerson and Peisss conception with domination, which is used to refer to the ways in which women are oppressed, and may accommodate or resist such oppression. The importance of boundaries as a concept is that it simultaneously expresses a basic commonality in the divisions between the sexes, while at the same time permitting analysis of differences and change in patterns of gender experience. There may be large boundaries, as between work and leisure, public and private, but also smaller ones regulating, for example, the domestic division of labour or talk and no-talk zones in the marital conversation (Benjamin, 1995). These intersections are signicant in an analysis of gender relations since they demarcate normative behaviours and attitudes, and permit the identication of points of dynamic change when they are shifted. The relationship between the three elements in respect of change is summarised by Gerson and Peiss thus: [C]hanges in gender relations occur along the three dimensions of boundaries, negotiation/domination and consciousness; change in any one variable elicits change in the other two. (1985: 327) Thus negotiation may permit adjustment of boundaries either preceded, accompanied or followed by an alteration in consciousness
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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan (1985: 323). What we have tried to do in this study is to provide, in an inevitably limited way, an empirical model of this theoretical conception, operationalized in terms of interpersonal skills, marital communication and the domestic division of labour. As referred to above, however, we were also interested in the interaction of these factors with the more conventionally-analysed differentials in material resources, and the combination of all these factors gives us the following working model, in which both the theoretical concepts and the corresponding measured variables (shown in italics) are indicated:

gender consciousness negotiation in marital relationships: possibility of boundary shifting (= communication/domestic division of labour)

relational resources (= interpersonal skills)

structural resources (= material circumstances)

Figure 1 Working model of relationships

Data and method The model suggested above requires assessment of the association between exposure to a particular ideological environment (therapeutic discourse) and relational resources capable of facilitating the successful negotiation of change within intimate relationships. It was hypothesized that women with the most systematic exposure to such discourse would be professional women who came into contact with it through their employment. In order to fairly compare access to relational resources between women it was therefore necessary to select other professional women as a comparison group. Hence the analyses presented here are based on professional women with differential exposures to therapeutic discourse.1 An additional consideration in this selection was that the evidence for change in domestic division of labour is currently still relatively limited, and it is precisely among such groups of middle-class employed profes800
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Relational resources sional women that there is the most evidence in the literature for increased levels of male participation (Edgell, 1980; Gilbert and Dancer, 1992; Gershuny et al, 1994). By controlling in this broad way for occupational status, a more rened analysis can be performed, relating both to differences in exposure to institutional level forces (therapeutic discourse) and to differences in relational and structural resources (such as years in full-time employment). The method of sampling was thus based upon theoretical considerations relating to the underlying conceptual model (theoretical sampling).2 The data presented come from a study conducted in England in 199192, further details of which may be found in Benjamin (1995). Four groups of professional women were sent detailed mail questionnaires, and, based upon their responses to this questionnaire, some were subsequently interviewed in depth. This multi-method approach is, we would argue, important if one plans to work at different levels of analysis, and in the analyses presented below different methods were used to address and clarify different parts of the model outlined above. In general, the survey material was used to investigate exposure to therapeutic discourse, self-assessed interpersonal communication skills, and changes in the pattern of the domestic division of labour, while the in-depth interview material was used to assess womens experience of detailed negotiation and transformation of boundaries in respect both of marital communication and the domestic division of labour. The initial consideration in the selection of specic groups of qualied professional women for the survey was to attempt to maximise the contrast between women who come into contact with therapeutic discourse as part of their professional lives, and those who are materially similar, but whose contact with therapeutic discourse would only be informally based. On the basis of these considerations marriage guidance counsellors (with strong professional exposure in both training and practice to therapeutic discourse) were selected to be compared with chartered accountants (with little professional exposure). Head teachers (with as little professional training as chartered accountants but the probability of more informal exposure) and social workers (with some exposure through professional training, but not so much as marriage guidance counsellors) completed the range. All the women were aged between 35 and 50. It has been argued that at these ages the parenting of young children is less likely to be exerting strong pressure towards forming traditional gender roles
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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan (eg La Rossa and La Rossa, 1984), and there is evidence in the psychological literature to suggest that the mid-life years are particularly amenable to change regarding gender roles (eg Friedman, 1993). Following an initial pilot exercise the mail questionnaire was sent to 1140 women aged between 35 and 50 in the four different professions, who were contacted via their workplaces or professional organizations. Information was sought on aspects of employment (including training involving communicative skills), nancial situation, relationship history, domestic division of labour in the household (including attempts at change), feelings about current relationships, exposure to self-help or psychology literature and self-assessed interpersonal communicative skills. Altogether 408 questionnaires were returned (an overall 36% response rate within the range to be expected from the initial return to a postal questionnaire survey ranging from 28% from head teachers to 51% from chartered accountants).3 Table 1 shows the general characteristics of the sample in respect of employment (full-time or part-time employed), age (under 42 years or older), mean age of youngest child and current partnership status (no current partner, rst live-in partner or second live-in partner). It is evident that there are some structural differences between the different occupations in respect of these characteristics. Of particular relevance to a discussion of change in the domestic division of labour is the fact that chartered accountants are on average younger, while head teachers and social workers are more likely to be employed full-time than are the other groups. According to the literature on the relationship between structural factors and change in domestic division of labour, we would expect to nd a more equal division of domestic labour in the households of younger and fulltime employed women (see, for instance, Gershuny, 1995). We return to a discussion of this point in the following section of the paper, and simply note here that although there are important structural differentials between the occupational groups, the expectations which we would have about the consequences of these differences based on the existing literature on structural difference and the domestic division of labour are not borne out in any particularly clear way in the analyses that follow. The depth interviews were conducted with women on the basis of their responses to questions in the survey (including willingness to be interviewed). According to responses to questions about attempts to change domestic arrangements, six categories of women were identied for interviewing. These ranged from those reporting 802
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Relational resources Table 1 General characteristics of the sample by occupation

Marriage counsellors % Part time employed Full-time employed N 100% Mean of full time years* Under 42 years 42 and older N 100% Mean age of youngest child No present partner First live-in partner Second live-in partner N 100% 78 (103) 22 (29) 132 14.5 28 (37) 72 (95) 132 15.0 9 (12) 70 (92) 21 (28) 132 Social workers % 30 (20) 70 (47) 67 9.8 42 (28) 59 (39) 67 13.8 22 (14) 51 (34) 28 (19) 67 Head teachers % 2 (1) 98 (54) 55 19.0 38 (21) 62 (34) 55 12.8 27 (15) 58 (32) 15 (8) 55 Chartered accountants % 37 (56) 63 (98) 154 15.0 74 (114) 26 (40) 154 7.9 8 (13) 77 (118) 15 (23) 154

*Calculated only for women currently in full-time employment

successful attempts at change, through those unsuccessfully attempting change, to those who reported never attempting change. Altogether 28 women (13 marriage counsellors, 3 social workers, 2 head teachers and 10 chartered accountants)4 were interviewed in detail about their relationships (focusing particularly on housework and patterns of communication), their communication skills, their attempts at changing aspects of their relationships, and their experience of processes of change where this had been attempted and/or achieved. It was from these interviews that information about negotiation and transformation of boundaries in marital communication and the domestic division of labour was collated.
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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan

Findings
Therapeutic discourse and relational resources The rst connection within the proposed model relates to the extent of exposure to therapeutic discourse, and the association between this and the level of relational resources among the different groups of women. The investigation of this association constitutes the rst step before moving on to investigate the relationship between relational resources and negotiation and boundary change in aspects of the marital relationship. Table 2 shows the proportions of the four groups of professional women who had attended a relationship/interaction focused course (including the marriage guidance training course, another counselling or psychotherapy course and/or communication/assertiveness courses); had experience of personal or marital counselling; and who had some familiarity with the self-help literature. There are some strong relationships evident between exposure and occupation. All of the marriage guidance counsellors received the Relate counselling training course (including basic counselling, supervision and education skills), which was considered to be the strongest average indicator of exposure. On the other hand, nearly 80% of chartered accountants had no exposure to the various kinds of courses recorded here. This major differential is reected in the other two types of exposure, with marriage counsellors being the most likely to receive personal counselling (over 50%, compared to 9% of chartered accountants) and the most likely to have read several self-help books (nearly 70% reporting themselves as having read more than a few compared to just 3% of chartered accountants). Social workers and head teachers occupy intermediate positions with respect to all three types of exposure, with social workers tending to have higher levels of exposure than head teachers. With regard to the translation of this exposure into relational resources there is previous evidence to suggest that marriage guidance training in particular leads counsellors to adopt a more analytic approach to their own marriages (Walker and Baird, 1988), which in turn tended to improve some aspects of their marital relationships (Morgan, 1992; Walker and Baird, 1988). The qualications for social work in England is not as directed at counselling skills as the training for marriage guidance, but nevertheless involves training in relevant areas such as communication skills, decision-making and evaluation. Collins and Collins (1992: 57) have explicitly 804
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Table 2 Exposure to therapeutic discourse by occupation

a) Number of respondents who had taken various relationship related courses Marriage counsellors Relate* training course (basic counselling, supervision, education) Assertiveness course Communication course Counselling course other than Relate Psychotherapy course % of respondents who received any of the above N Social workers Head teachers Chartered accountants

132 10 9 20 5 100 132

12 3 13 12 60 67

6 13 1 1 38 55

11 12 10

21 154

*Relate is the name of the main marriage guidance organization in Britain b) Number of respondents with exposure to personal and marital counselling Marriage counsellors Had personal counselling Of these who didnt have personal counselling had marital counselling % of respondents who received any of the above N 69 Social workers 27 Head teachers 8 Chartered accountants 14

9 59 132

3 45 67

3 21 55

12 17 154

c) Number of respondents reporting familiarity with self-help literature* Marriage counsellors Read no such books Read only one Read a few Read more than a fe w 2 (2) 2 (2) 36 (28) 90 (69) 132 Social workers 1 (2) 43 (70) 18 (29) 67 Head teachers 11 (3) 29 (66) 4 (9) 55 Chartered accountants 104 (68) 5 (3) 40 (26) 4 (3) 154

N Of these who read any % who reported it was useful

81

48

32

29

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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan referred to the development of reection, self-disclosure, challenging, emotional support and the promotion of change as part of the social workers practice skills. In contrast, neither head teachers nor chartered accountants receive any formal training in counselling or communication skills (although opportunities for such training are usually available to head teachers in the course of their careers), with more stress in both professions increasingly being placed on the development of management skills. Following on from this, Table 3 shows the self-assessment (on a 5point scale) of interpersonal skills from the mail questionnaire for the different groups of women. In accord with expectations based on the above information on occupational exposure, marriage counsellors and social workers reported higher levels of control than head teachers and chartered accountants over the following skills: effective communication of self-interest; effective communication in delicate situations; awareness of own emotions and approval of open conict in relationships. There is support here for the idea that exposure to therapeutic discourse is distinctly different for women in different professional occupations, and that this exposure is associated with the acquisition of the relational resources which we hypothesize are useful to the negotiation of boundaries regulating aspects of the marital relationship. Relational resources and change Having indicated an association between exposure to therapeutic discourse and the development of relational resources, Table 4 below examines the main link in the model; that between levels of relational resources and reported success in the achievement of change in marital relationships. Change applies here both in the more conventionally measured area of the domestic division of labour and in respect of marital communication. The index of relational resources used in the table has been constructed from ve Likert-scale questions on the questionnaire which deal with interpersonal skills such as how effective a woman feels she is at communicating her own interests (see Table 3) and how easy she nds it to go against her partners opinions/expectations. The index ranges from one to ve, and its overall mean is 2.8. The categories relating to attempts to change aspects of the marital relationship are constructed with reference to three dimensions for both marital communication and the domestic division of labour: attempted/didnt want to change; 806
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Relational resources Table 3 Comparison of means of self-reported interpersonal skills by occupation

Mean for MC and SW Effective communication of self-interests Effective communication in delicate situations Awareness of ones own emotions Approval of open conict in relationship N 3.8 3.5 4.1 3.7 199 Mean for HT and CA 3.3 3.0 3.6 2.9 209 T-Value 4.96** 6.28** 6.51** 6.70**

Key: MC marriage guidance counsellors; SW social workers; HT head teachers; CA chartered accountants (note: the means of the occupational groups are combined due to small sample numbers) **statistical signicance of difference <0.015

success/disappointment following attempts at change; and degree of partners cooperation in an aspect where change was not sought. These categories are shown ranked in Table 4 according to the mean relational resource score associated with each.6 The table shows that no successful attempts to introduce change in either communication or housework are found within the lowest eight category means (ie where mean relational resources were less than the overall mean), while in all the remaining categories except one, women reported success in changing at least one aspect of their marital relationship either the domestic division of labour or marital communication or both (refer to italics in the table). We have some support in the correlation shown in Table 4 for the connection in the model between the level of relational resources and the accomplishment of change in aspects of the marital relationship. But how might such change actually be achieved on the micro-level? The qualitative interviews provide us with information about change in the interactional context. In particular, they yield insights into the negotiation of boundaries governing both communication (eg talk/no-talk zones) and housework (her responsibilities).

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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan The negotiation of change: shifting boundaries Authors in the eld of marital negotiation emphasize its mostly implicit and unspoken nature (eg Backett, 1982; Luxton, 1986; Hochschild, 1989). Askhams 1985 study presented one possible explanation for this pattern: apparently, all marital conversations exclude certain issues which are perceived by the couple (the man, the woman or both) to endanger the relationship. Womens responsibility for housework is perceived, within the context of traditional gender ideologies, to be part of the cultural given. Explicit conversation on this topic is therefore both redundant and dangerous. Discussing housework (outside the gendered allocation of complaining entitlements, where women may complain about their partners failure to properly provide and men may complain about their partners failure to provide them with appropriate services Tomaskovic-Devey, 1989) is therefore tantamount to a challenge of the relationship itself. In Hochschilds terminology it upsets the delicate balance of the couples economy of gratitude (Hochschild, 1989). The interviews conducted in this study support Askhams argument: most interviewees showed how they could not bring their partner to discuss certain issues, at least for a substantial part of their relationship. For some of them this was because they had assumed there would be a negative emotional effect on the relationship, which they preferred to avoid. For others, this inability to discuss things had to do with negative past experiences. That is, events in which they tried to voice their concerns and encountered a forceful attack, withdrawal or ridicule. Of the twenty-eight marital conversations which were described, seventeen excluded housework as a topic for open conversation. These cases included six interviewees for whom housework remained excluded despite attempts to bring it into the marital conversation. On the basis of this analysis and particularly because of the implications of this exclusion for the possibility of change in this area, it seemed that a boundary in Gerson and Peisss (1985) terms was being reported. Housework was of course not the only issue excluded by a boundary within the marital conversation. For quite a few couples discussing topics related to the relationship itself was also impossible. Fifteen of the interviewees described their marital conversation as regulated by this boundary, which excluded intimacy and emotional support from the marital conversation. Seven of the women who reported facing this boundary described events in which they 808
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Table 4 Means of relational resources index for 16 categories of experience of change in marital situation
Experience of change in marital situation Tried to change ddl. but remained disappointed, didnt want to change com. cooperative partner. Tried to change ddl. but remained disappointed, didnt want to change com. despite lack of cooperation. Didnt want to change ddl. despite lack of cooperation and tried to change com. but remained disappointed. Didnt want to change ddl. despite lack of cooperation and didnt want to change com. despite lack of cooperation. Tried to change ddl. but remained disappointed, tried to change com. but remained disappointed. Didnt want to change ddl. cooperative partner, didnt want to change com. despite lack of cooperation. Didnt want to change ddl. cooperative partner, didnt want to change com. cooperative partner. Didnt want to change ddl. despite lack of cooperation, didnt want to change com. cooperative partner. Wanted and managed to change ddl., didnt want to change com. despite lack of cooperation. Tried to change ddl. but remained disappointed and wanted and managed to change com. Wanted and managed to change ddl. and tried to change com. but remained disappointed. Wanted and managed to change ddl. and didnt want to change com. cooperative partner. Didnt want to change ddl. despite lack of cooperation, wanted and managed to change com. Didnt want to change ddl. cooperative partner and tried to change com. but remained disappointed. Wanted and managed to change ddl. and wanted and managed to change com. Didnt want to change ddl. cooperative partner, wanted and managed to change com. Relational resources index Grand mean 2.8 2.0 N 6

2.4

11

2.5

41

2.6 2.6

19 68

2.7 2.7

10 18

2.8 2.8 2.9 2.9 2.9 3.0

23 10 30 40 8 30

3.0 3.0 3.1

11 49 21

Key: ddl. domestic division of labour; com. marital communication

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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan tried to challenge it but were unsuccessful. Their partners responses protected the boundary against any attempt to shift it. However, as was indicated in the previous section, some of the women interviewed in this study did describe achieving what could be regarded as a successful shift of boundaries. Issues (eg housework) which earlier in the relationship could not be discussed were brought by the interviewees into the marital conversation in a way which enabled that issue to be discussed, and often this seemed to enable change in the related aspect of the relationship. For seven women this process of shifting the boundaries involved the rejection of previous norms delegitimizing the expression of anger. For example, one woman who succeeded in achieving change said: . . . You know good girls dont shout . . . I was a good girl. But now, anything like . . . being late or breaking the rule of the house or disobeying can raise my anger . . . . . . with my rst marriage we never raised our voices, we never ever had a row or anything like that. But here we have wonderful rows. Banging on the table. There isnt any . . . neither of us are scared to show his or her anger . . . In this household once banging on the table became a possibility, a range of previously excluded issues appeared to become available for discussion. The respondent felt that this possibility enabled her to take a more active role in shaping the marital conversation, and the concrete household arrangements which emerged from it. Five other women experienced boundary shifting in respect of housework as part of an increased awareness of the nature of their communication with their partners. For these women often the most important rst change was that involving bringing their partners to the realisation that a change in communication was needed. Once their partners were convinced on that point, the old boundaries around housework started to weaken. This example is illustrative: Interviewer: I asked you whether you have been trying to change the situation and you said you did. May I ask you how? What did you do? Communicated how I felt about it. Interviewer: Like saying youre angry or what? Yes, or like saying why is it always expected that I should do it? you know I wasnt actually born with a hoover in my hand . . . 810
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Relational resources I think it was needing to get the message across that because I do it it doesnt always mean to say that I like doing it . . . The interview material shows that these efforts to get the message across is a major part of the process by which boundaries are shifted, and change can occur. The possibility of bringing previously excluded topics into the marital conversation enables women to take an active role in shaping their domestic arrangements as well as other aspects of their relationships. An important additional element in linking changes of the kinds described above to the possession of relational resources is the subjective assessment of the respondents in respect of the reasons for their success or otherwise in initiating change. Table 3 above identied that women with greater access to therapeutic discourse through their work (marriage guidance counsellors and social workers) report themselves as equipped with greater interpersonal skills. But to what extent do women in these occupations attribute their ability to negotiate and change aspects of their relationships to the impact of the relational resources acquired through their professional lives? These acquired resources were directly perceived by some women as contributing to the successful negotiation of change in their marital relationships. For instance, of the thirteen marriage guidance counsellors interviewed, three condently related a signicant change in their marital relationships to their counselling training, while another six described changes they had experienced as being related primarily to individual therapy (often undertaken during or as a consequence of the Relate training). Some descriptions of this process include: Interviewer: Why do you say that [your partner] has changed a lot? Because he was a lot more selsh maybe I was too but I think he was, and Ive told him that, and these are the things weve been able to discuss and communicate you see. (marriage guidance counsellor) So I was getting a lot of training from outside about feelings and what makes us react to things. And I was able to use that in my relationship. I was growing up because of what I was learning from outside. (social worker) So it seems that some women (9 of 13 marriage guidance counsellors, for example) do directly attribute the accomplishment of
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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan change to specic skills acquired through their professional careers. This conclusion is supported in the survey data, where of 230 respondents who reported that it had become easier to go against their partners expectations, more than half (N 130) related the change to the impact of their occupational life. Of those who made this connection, 60% were either marriage guidance counsellors or social workers. We cannot of course (nor do we wish to) claim any necessary or invariant causality here. Some women reported that they were able to use interpersonal skills acquired in this way in order to achieve signicant changes in both their marital communication and in their partners participation in domestic work. However, there were also a few women who received an extensive occupational exposure to therapeutic discourse yet who perceived that they had failed at introducing change at the concrete level of household arrangements into their relationships despite trying (n 3). All these women had low levels of material resources a point we will return to below. On the other hand one woman (a successful chartered accountant experiencing upward mobility in her profession) who had not received any such exposure, reported that she had tried and been successful in achieving change. This diversity at the level of individual households only illustrates the complexity of attempting to provide an understanding of change in an area where dimensions of power, intimacy, material resources and individual histories are deeply embedded and mutually interconnected. We only hope to provide some evidence in support of our argument that specic institutional-level inuences can play a signicant role in the development of individual relational resources, and that such resources constitute one important element in the negotiation of change in aspects of the marital relationship. Other elements are also of course signicant, two obvious examples being partners previous history of relationships (there is increasing evidence that there may be more equality in second marriages: Ishii-Kuntz and Coltrane, 1992; Pyke and Coltrane, 1996; Sullivan, 1997), and the impact of structural factors such as employment history and relative income. Structural and relational resources In illustration of the interconnectedness between some of these elements we return here to a question raised earlier concerning the relationship between structural and relational resources. There is in fact an interesting inversion evident in this sample between levels of struc812
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Relational resources

material resources relational resources partners participation

72.46

75.35

*
4.05

3.76

0.49

33.72 0.62

* 13.46

0.61

3.39

3.43

0.72

Figure 2 Relational resources, material resources and partners participation in domestic work tural resources and those of relational resources. Marriage guidance counsellors and social workers, who have the highest levels of relational resources, score lower than head teachers and chartered accountants on a range of measures of material resources: income; nancial circumstances of the family of origin; number of years in full-time employment; paid hours per week. It appears that high levels of relational resources go together in this particular sample of professional women with lower levels of access to material resources. This relationship can be seen in Figure 2, where material and relational resources are graphed together with a more conventional indicator of relative gender power in households; partners participation in domestic work.7 A word of explanation is required about the calculation of the indices. The index of relational resources is the one introduced in a previous section (p. 807). The index of material resources was based on four components: the respondents income; the number of weekly hours in paid employment; the number of years spent in the profession; and the nancial situation of the respondents family of origin. The index of partners participation is based on a question which asks, for seven feminine-associated tasks8 (Goldsheider and Waite, 1991), who does that task as part of the daily household routine. In respect of the relationship between material and relational resources, it can clearly be seen that those
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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan professional groups with the lowest access to material resources are those with the highest access to relational resources. When the index of partners participation is added an interesting effect is evident. There appears to be a slight positive association between the level of material resources and partners participation over the rst three groups, but chartered accountants, whose material resources are the greatest, report the lowest levels of partners participation. This raises an interesting question, since in general in research in this area it is found that higher levels of partners participation in domestic work is associated with higher levels of womens material resources. There is clearly a more complex relationship involved, to which other factors, including relational resources and perhaps selection effects into different occupations (see, for instance, Crompton, 1996), are likely to be making a contribution. Looking at the relationship between partners participation and relational resources, the two professions with the highest levels of relational resources have intermediate levels of partners participation according to these indices, while head teachers, with levels of relational resources equivalent to chartered accountants have in fact the highest levels of partners participation. In the face of this somewhat inconclusive macro-level relationship, we felt it to be important to directly consider the effects of relational resources while holding constant a measure of material resources in multivariate analysis. In other words, what is the effect of relational resources on partners participation at different levels of material resources? Table 5 shows an example of such an analysis. The multiple classication analysis from a non-hierarchical analysis of variance is presented, in which the measure of material resources used is the number of years in full-time employment, while relational resources are dichotomised into low and high categories (above and below the mean value of the index of relational resources). The dependent variable is, as above, the index of partners participation in domestic work. The adjusted deviations show that, while holding constant the effect of years in full-time employment, there is still a signicant difference in the expected direction according to whether womens level of relational resources are high (where the level of partners participation is found to be above the mean) or low (where it is below the mean). In other words, irrespective of the material resources measured where womens relational resources are higher their partners make on average a greater contribution to domestic work. An examination of the category means shows that the difference is particularly marked for those women who have been in full-time employment 814
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Relational resources Table 5 Multiple classication analysis from analysis of variance; dependent variable index of partners participation in domestic work
Grand Mean .62 N Years of full-time work No full-time experience Up to 10 years 10 or more years Level of relational resources High Low *See note 5 179 59 163 240 161 Adjusted Deviation .09 .10 .13 .04 .05 Beta P-value*

.27

.000

.11

.031

for ten years or more. In other words, the impact of relational resources is higher when the level of material resources is also high. This reinforcement effect between material and relational resource derives theoretical support from the assessment that: (gender) consciousness . . . is the outcome of processes of negotiation and domination as well as the result of womens structural location. . . . (It) inuences processes of negotiation and domination, and ultimately, the boundaries shaping gender relations (Gerson and Peiss, 1985: 325) (our italics).

Conclusion
The main argument of this study is that the concepts of relational resources and gender consciousness have an important contribution to make to our understanding of processes of change in marital relationships. Although the evidence can only be considered preliminary, we found that women from occupational groups with high levels of exposure to therapeutic discourse (in professional training, personal counselling, reading etc) are more likely to report themselves as having acquired specic interpersonal skills through their occupations. Moreover, combinations of these interpersonal skills (relational resources) were associated with the successful challenging of normative boundaries regulating both the communicative sphere within marriage and the material arena of the division of domestic labour. Many women attributed such success to their professionally
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Orly Benjamin and Oriel Sullivan derived interpersonal skills, and in in-depth interviews some described the process whereby they had achieved the successful challenging of boundaries through the use of such skills. In addition, the possibilities of transformation in marital relationships in one of these areas (the division of domestic labour) appeared to be inuenced by a reinforcement of relational resources and material resources, such that those women with high levels of both material and relational resources were more likely to have more participatory partners. In part, this paper was prompted by Gerson and Peisss call (Gerson and Peiss, 1985) for more research into the processes by which gender consciousness develops of recedes. Such consciousness, according to Thompson, 1993, constitutes a central component in our understanding of womens attempts at change, and in connected here with the argument advanced by Giddens (1991, 1992) among others, that exposure to expert systems of knowledge about self and relationships can serve to enhance reexivity and control over relationships with others. We have argued that the accomplishment of change in these areas is connected to an enabling gender consciousness, which may also derive from the same exposure. The approach presented here therefore connects on one level with research on gender ideologies and the transformation of intimacy (eg Giddens, 1992; Cancian, 1987), and on another with research on the links between housework and levels of intimacy/ communication at the individual household level (Thompson, 1993; Zvonkovic, 1996; Sanchez and Kane, 1996; Pyke and Coltrane, 1996). We have recognised the complexity of the different levels of analysis that are involved in a study of this kind by stressing throughout the interconnectedness of the relationships between resources, intimacy, power and their material expression in indicators such as the division of domestic labour. We believe that it is necessary to take on directly the challenge of doing research at the interface of the institutional and interactional levels of analysis in order to move forward in this area. This approach is, we believe, not only justiable from the theoretical literature on gender relations, but is centrally constitutive though one only rarely taken on in empirical studies. In terms of further research, while the analysis here has been restricted to a specic group of women chosen for particular theoretical reasons, other models connecting possibilities of transformation in marital relationships relating both to gender consciousness and to material and/or relational resources could clearly also be 816
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Relational resources postulated and examined. In addition little attention has been given in this paper to the detailed relationship between the two aspects of marital relationships examined (the domestic division of labour and marital communication), despite the recognition that these dimensions are strongly interconnected. The qualitative data suggest that housework becomes negotiable in conditions where marital communication provides a framework for the open discussion of housework-related feelings. More likely, though, the causal connections are not as straight-forward as this implies, and further research is needed in order to clarify these relationships. Finally, the examination of negotiation and communication in marital relationships should of course ideally include information from both partners in the relationship. In this study, since the particular interest was on the acquisition of resources derived from specic discourses, it was decided (for reasons of manageability) to focus only on professional women. The analyses presented here therefore provide information on womens perceptions of their experiences, but research which included similar information for both men and women in other statuses would constitute an important further step in our understanding of these processes. Bar Ilan University and Received 20 November 1997 Ben Gurion University of the Nagev Finally accepted 16 March 1999

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Professors Julia Brannen and Jonathan Gershuny for advice and inspiration.

Notes
1 We are aware that there is evidence for differential sorting into occupations, and of the existence of different occupational subcultures (see Kanter, 1977). However, as the analyses below demonstrate, there is evidence for the direct effect (at least as perceived by the women themselves) of skills developed as part of occupational training. 2 We have therefore tried to keep the use of techniques of analysis relying on statistical signicance to a minimum, since their use implies probability sampling. 3 On the issue of whether the response balance attracted any specic pattern regarding attempts to change the division of domestic labour, results were compared to previous studies concerning mens domestic participation, and in this respect the sample resembled representative samples. 4 Marriage guidance counsellors and chartered accountants were focused upon, since these were thought to provide the main contrast in respect to exposure to therapeutic discourse.
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5 Strictly speaking, the use of tests of statistical signicance with a non-probability sample is not justied. Readers should bear in mind that they are included here for descriptive purposes only. 6 Although this classication produces a table with a large number of categories, we did not want to lose the richness of the full description of womens successes and disappointments in their attempts to change different areas of their relationships. 7 This indicator is used in order to be able to refer more directly to previous research which deals with the relationship between womens material resources and the domestic division of labour. 8 These tasks are: cooking, child-care, washing, cleaning, shopping, planning meals and planning shopping.

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