‘Baby, you’re my Kryptonite…’ – a sociological analysis of romantic socialization and power dynamics in heterosexual romantic relationships from ‘her perspective’

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the impacts of romantic socialization on the power dynamics, if any, within heterosexual romantic relationships. Romantic relationships and gender inequality are topics widely studied by scholars but articles pertaining to the Singaporean Indian community with regards to these subjects do not exist, instigating me to do a focused study on the women of this population. Utilizing a qualitative framework and individual in-depth, semi-structured interviews with ten heterosexual Singaporean Indian women, ages 21-25, it examines women’s lived experiences of love, gender polarity and power dynamics. The findings are discussed in the context of a broad range of academic theories on romantic and gender socialization, gender polarity and power dynamics. My results indicate that Singaporean Indian women take on an androgynous perspective when it comes to love and are equals in their relationships, in contrast to what media portrays.