"Many of us have probably heard the following pieces of advice when navigating conflicts in an interpersonal relationship. Pick your battles: don't make an issue out of every problem; let some minor grievances go. Don't expect your partner (friend, colleague) to be a mind-reader; instead, explicitly articulate your desires and needs before assuming the other is deliberately disregarding them. These suggestions are meant to encourage healthy communication while remaining realistic about the imperfect nature of humans and their relationships."
"However, like so many of our interpersonal practices, this advice is built on-and thus serves to reinforce-oppressive, heteropatriarchal norms and stereotypes. In turn, the deployment of this advice is distorted along gendered lines, so that what seems neutral advice becomes a mechanism to reinforce those very stereotypes and norms. As a result, women end up doing even more of the work of relationship maintenance while the stereotypes of women as naturally more intuitive and emotionally intelligent, and of men as clueless and inept, are reinforced."
Common relationship advice such as 'pick your battles' and 'explicitly articulate needs' appears neutral but rests on heteropatriarchal assumptions. These recommendations are deployed along gendered lines, prompting women to absorb more relational maintenance and emotional labor. Gendered deployment reinforces stereotypes of women as naturally intuitive and emotionally skilled and of men as clueless or inept. Socialization prepares women to act as lay relationship therapists for themselves and others, which normalizes unequal labor. While such advice can apply across relationship types and genders, its prevailing direction toward heterosexual women intensifies existing power dynamics and reproduces oppressive norms.
Read at Apaonline
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