Straight guys would rather open up to their male friends than their romantic partners. That’s the overarching idea of a paper published yesterday in the journal Men and Masculinities. In the small study, which compared men’s friendships to their romantic relationships, researchers found that college-aged men get more emotional satisfaction out of their so-called “bromances.” The authors note that although it’s a good thing that men feel they can open up to their male friends, they might damage their relationships with women by not discussing important and personal topics with them, too. But multiple gender studies experts urged caution in applying these findings to the male population, and in pitting these relationships against each other.
For the study, researchers from the University of Winchester in England had a male interviewer ask 30 straight male undergraduates about their “bromances” and their relationships with girlfriends past and present. And by bromance, the researchers meant “the closest of friendships between guys whereby nothing is off limits and there are no boundaries to what can be discussed,” says study author Adam White, a graduate student at the university who’s pursuing a doctorate in sport and exercise. “[It] has all of the qualities of a romantic relationship, without the sex.”
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That’s not the kind of academic background you’d tend to associate with a study like this, but White notes that he and the other two authors do have a background in masculinities. He researches the intersection of sport and gender; Stefan Robinson explores young men’s relationships; and Eric Anderson is a professor of sport, masculinities, and sexualities.
And before we go any further, let’s discuss that study sample. The group was made up of 30 young, straight men, all but one of whom were white, and who were all pursuing majors in the sports department. This group “is no closer a representation for all men as a rock found on the moon,” says Javon Johnson, a professor in the department of interdisciplinary, gender, and ethnic studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Moving on. The authors set out to understand the similarities and differences between strong friendships and romantic relationships. The participants, who were all sophomores, overwhelmingly agreed that they could share more personal information—ranging from their innocent love of Taylor Swift music to their desire to be fingered during sex—with their “bros” than their girlfriends.
Given the inherent differences in the two bonds, it makes sense that people would share certain things with their friends that they wouldn’t tell their SO. But several of the students also described their romantic relationships as an exchange: specifically, kindness and loyalty on his part for sex on her part.
Not only that, but the students assigned sexist traits to women when explaining their relationships. Exhibit A: “Women…take things more literally and get upset, whereas guys can laugh out their frustrations.” B: “With men, it’s over. But women are very good at remembering things.” C: “I’d say guys are less emotional about arguments.” The guys thought their friends were more forgiving and less likely to a hold grudge, and were more open around them as a result.
“That’s a pretty tired stereotype,” says Christia Brown, a developmental psychologist and professor at the University of Kentucky, whose work focuses on gender stereotypes. She points out that from a young age, boys and girls are often raised to conform to social constructions of gender, with boys being taught to hide vulnerabilities and girls to verbalize their emotions. “It’s really that women are putting words on a common human experience, whereas men often aren’t.”
Of course, the authors weren’t the ones expressing the stereotypes, and they did mention them in their discussion, writing: “There was a tendency…to deliver sexist perspectives in a humorous and banterous way to deter accusations of sexism, and this is problematic.” They also noted that the design could have impacted the students’ responses. “We believe that the binary approach to questioning (ie bromances vs romances), and the fact that the interviewer was of the same sex as participants, may have subtly influenced the nature of the language used to describe women.” But those acknowledgments are buried under one of the study’s main takeaways: that men think they subject each other to less judgment and emotional reaction than women do, White says.
The authors point out that this study is limited in scope because of the small, specific sample, but White also wrote in an article for The Conversation that it “may well be” representative beyond the sample. And many headlines about these findings make the leap that we’re talking about all men.
By reviving the idea that women are emotional and manipulative, some coverage of this study affirms misogynistic and paternalistic perspectives of women. “Men, women, non-binary people, we all have emotions, but women have been characterized as emotional as an insult,” says Anita Revilla, chair of UNLV’s department of interdisciplinary, gender, and ethnic studies. And the tricky part about social constructions is that the more people reinforce them, the more normalized they become.
In subtle ways, the participants’ responses also reaffirm stereotypes about men. One undergrad didn’t want his girlfriend to come over when he was feeling down because he didn’t want her to see him upset. The T-Swift fan didn’t want his girlfriend to know about his musical taste because he wanted to seem “manly” around her. “You have boys growing up in a world where in middle school, if they show any kind of emotion or vulnerability in any way, they’re usually called a homophobic slur,” Brown says.
Gender plays a role in social interactions, but not to the extent that women are better for this, and men are better for that. Pitting platonic and romantic relationships against one another and crowning one the “winner” in terms of satisfaction goes against everything we know about our mental, emotional, and social needs.
“Relationships are far messier than choosing one or the other,” Johnson says. “We have multiple relationships because humans are complex and dynamic and cannot receive everything we need from one other person.” The fact that some young men feel they can be open and honest with their close male friends is a great thing—but it’s emotionally naive for the participants to think that they can only get it from these male relationships, Brown says.
“These stereotypes are rooted in power differentials that have led to people being in all kinds of relationships where men and women are unequal,” Revilla explains, often as a result of women being in situations where they don’t have power among men. “Women know that these relationships are overwhelmingly unequal, and they’re socialized to either accept that, or critique it.” It’s in decisive men being called “the boss” and superior women being called “bossy.” It’s in grown men calling grown women “girls.” And it’s in people pushing the idea that women have uncontrollable, unpredictable emotional reactions to everyday situations.
Some of the coverage of this study claims that the bromance is “worrying for women” and that it “threatens heterosexual relationships” because it means “guys don’t want to get married.” But, Johnson asks, “What does it mean to threaten hetero relationships? If [the bromance] does threaten them, then doesn’t that reinforce the notion that hetero relationships are ‘normal’ and everything else is attempting to challenge what ‘ought’ to be?”
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