Heterosexism and the Study of Women's Romantic and Friend Relationships

The perceived or actual absence of sexuality from heterosexual women's friendships might be explained in several ways that could be explored empirically. First, perhaps heterosexual women have learned better than lesbians how to split sexuality from intimacy in same-sex relations. Second, the lack of a language for sexuality that is not focused on genital contact might cause such experiences to be forgotten or remain unarticulated (Rothblum, 1994). Third, perhaps some heterosexual women have and are aware of sexual feelings for same-sex friends. This issue has not been explored in contemporary studies of friendship. Cultural scripts that define same-sex friendships as platonic perhaps have led to this oversight.

In sum, lesbian and heterosexual women alike have equal and deeply intimate relationships with friends. However, heterosexist scripts create different social contexts for the friendships that affect their functioning and formation. The apparent lack of similarity between lesbians and heterosexual women in terms of the sexual dimension of friendship also is noticeable and explanations for it are worthy of investigation.

Conclusion

The analysis of lesbian and heterosexual women's relationships presented above suggests that a heterosexist bias in relationship research partly may be traced to the use of cultural scripts to generate lines of inquiry. According to script theory, cultural scripts may not be adequate for understanding the behavior of individuals for whom those scripts may be less relevant or have less shared meaning (Simon & Gagnon, 1986). Cultural scripts for romantic relations and friendship operate from a heterosexual norm that often does not map onto the situations in which lesbians find themselves. A small body of research on lesbians now exists that challenges the dominance of cultural scripts as a universal guide and suggests the need to study behavior using a broader framework. It appears that some aspects of heterosexual women's experience might also be better represented by a reduced reliance on cultural scripts in selecting research questions.

Previous biases cannot be remedied by merely adding lesbians to the sample. Heterosexism operates at a deeper level within cultural scripts than merely denying the existence of lesbians or failing to include them in the study of relationships. It shapes what is considered to be worthy of investigation and how behavior is defined. In order to generate a less biased approach, a deeper analysis and overhaul of assumptions must be conducted. Script theory suggests that interpersonal and intrapsychic scripts are important influences on behavior when cultural scripts are discrepant from the situations individuals confront. Eliciting those knowledge structures is one potentially fruitful direction for future research that might be pursued using qualitative, open-ended, and participatory methods. More attention to the variation that exists in definitions of romantic relationships and friendship would reveal other constructions of relationships that are in use. The dominance of cultural scripts also would be challeng ed by a more extensive exploration of the connections between sexual orientation, gender roles, and the social context of relationships. The new narratives, patterns, visions of gender, and units of analysis generated by this process might help to develop new, more representative theories of relationships.