The complexities of friendship: exploring how gay men make sense of their workplace friendships with straight women

Despite the contemporary attention paid to the gay male–straight female friendship dyad within popular culture and a growing scholarly interest in male–female friendships, not enough is known about the friendship dynamics between gay men and straight women, particularly in the workplace. I draw upon qualitative findings from in‐depth interviews with 28 gay men employed in a range of work roles in the UK to document their existence and shed light on how gay men understand, value and give meaning to workplace friendships with women. Study findings reveal the paucity of textual cues and practices to direct the development and maintenance of these friendships. Overcoming this, study participants are shown to be inventive in their approach to doing friendship. As problematic as some friendship ties are for understanding differences along the lines of sexuality and gender, the opportunities for challenging heteronormative ways of relating in workplace friendship are regarded as more promising.     

Intimacy and Emotion Work in Lesbian,Gay, and Heterosexual Relationships

Knowledge about how gender shapes intimacy is dominated by a heteronormative focus on relationships involving a man and a woman. In this study, the authors shifted the focus to consider gendered meanings and experiences of intimacy in same‐sex and different‐sex relationships. They merged the gender‐as‐relational perspective—that gender is co‐constructed and enacted within relationships—with theoretical perspectives on emotion work and intimacy to frame an analysis of in‐depth interviews with 15 lesbian, 15 gay, and 20 heterosexual couples. They found that emotion work directed toward minimizing and maintaining boundaries between partners is key to understanding intimacy in long‐term relationships. Moreover, these dynamics, including the type and division of emotion work, vary for men and women depending on whether they are in a same‐sex or different‐sex relationship. These findings push thinking about diversity in long‐term relationships beyond a focus on gender difference and toward gendered relational contexts.     

‘Domestic friends’: women's friendships,motherhood and inclusive intimacy

Based on a qualitative, interview‐based study of friendship, this article examines the specificity of ‘domestic friendships’ between women. Forged from the particular experiences, emotions and challenges of motherhood, they are qualitatively different from most friendships which tend to be based on individualistic connection and self‐expression. Domestic friendships facilitate a specific form of ‘inclusive intimacy’ and shape an expansive experience of domestic life beyond the family or household. They help shape mothers’ sense of self as profoundly relational and interconnected with others, and channel a sense of biographical selfhood whose form and temporality is tied firmly to others’ lives.     

Firm friends: exploring the supportive components in gay men's workplace friendships

Research shows that friendships are among the most important sources of support for gay men. Despite insights into how friends can be significant providers of emotional, practical and affirmational support, particularly when gay men 'come out' or experience discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, scholars have rarely considered the role of work friends in supporting gay men in the workplace. This is remarkable given that work organisations remain challenging arenas for sexual minority employees to fashion a meaningful sense of self. Drawing on in-depth interview data with twenty-eight gay men employed in the UK, this article argues that gay men can rely on work friends for different forms of support in helping them to negotiate and sustain a viable sense of self. The findings show how the gender and sexuality of organisation influences which men and women are available as work friends, and the types of support they might give. Also, the affirmational support received from work friends is important not only for validating participants' sexual identities, but also identities of class and parenthood. The study aims to complicate stereotypes of men's workplace friendships as sources of support used largely for advancing careers and personal gain.     

‘Workaholics’ and ‘whingeing women’: Theorising intimacy and emotion work — the last frontier of gender inequality?

In a variety of discourses and empirical studies it has been argued that compared with women, men show more reluctance to express intimate emotion in heterosexual couple relationships. Our paper attempts to theorise this gender asymmetry in intimate emotional behaviour as a sort of ‘emotional power’, within the wider context of continuing gender inequalities of resources and power in society. To the extent that men's role as breadwinner becomes their central life interest (they become ‘workaholics’), women are left with emotional responsibility for the private sphere, including the performance of the ‘emotion work’ necessary to maintain the couple relationship itself. Increasingly women's dissatisfaction in relationships (which men dismiss as unjustified ‘whingeing’) stems mainly from this unequal division. Yet many women still collude with male power by living the family ‘myth’ and ‘playing the couple game’; they perform emotion work on themselves to convince themselves that they are ‘ever so happy really’, thereby helping to reproduce their own false consciousness. This suggests that gender asymmetry in relation to intimacy and emotion work may be the last and most obstinate manifestation and frontier of gender inequality.     

Strategies Used by Gay and Bisexual Young Men to Cope with Heterosexism

Although the pervasiveness of heterosexism in the lives of gay and bisexual youth is well established, little is known about the strategies these youth use to cope with stigma and discrimination based on their sexual minority status. In this qualitative study, the authors present findings and implications for clinical practice based on interviews with 43 gay and bisexual young men. Respondents' coping strategies are discussed in relation to current theory and research on coping with stigma, as well as the emerging field of emotion regulation. The narratives from the current study suggest that the emotion regulation paradigm is well suited to understanding the functions of strategies for coping with heterosexism and similar types of stigma.     

Strategies Used by Gay and Bisexual Young Men to Cope With Heterosexism

ABSTRACT

Although the pervasiveness of heterosexism in the lives of gay and bisexual youth is well established, little is known about the strategies these youth use to cope with stigma and discrimination based on their sexual minority status. In this qualitative study, the authors present findings and implications for clinical practice based on interviews with 43 gay and bisexual young men. Respondents’ coping strategies are discussed in relation to current theory and research on coping with stigma, as well as the emerging field of emotion regulation. The narratives from the current study suggest that the emotion regulation paradigm is well suited to understanding the functions of strategies for coping with heterosexism and similar types of stigma.     

Controlling Anger and Happiness at Work: An Examination of Gender Differences

This article examines gender differences in the emotion management of men and women in the workplace. The belief in American culture that women are more emotional than men has limited women's opportunities in many types of work. Because emotional expression is often tightly controlled in the workplace, examining emotion management performed at work presents an opportunity to evaluate gender differences in response to similar working conditions. Previous research suggests that men and women do not differ in their experiences of emotion and the expression of emotion is linked to status positions. An analysis of survey data collected from workers in a diverse group of occupations illustrates that women express anger less and happiness more than men in the workplace. Job and status characteristics explain the association between gender and anger management at work but were unrelated to the management of happiness expressions in the workplace.     

Emotion Work,Shame, and Post-Soviet Women Entrepreneurs: Negotiating Ideals of Gender and Labor in a Global Economy

Drawing on ethnographic research among Russian women traders or “shuttle traders” (chelnoki), I examine discourses on shame as a type of emotion work and consider links to ideal gender roles among Russian women entrepreneurs. In a post-Soviet era increasingly shaped by transnational mobility, as well as by a persistent legacy of Soviet sensibilities, a focus on emotion among women traders provides an ideal lens for considering what travels between eras marked by distinct ideologies, between nation-states, and between public and domestic spaces. A discourse of shame links Soviet sensibilities of proper labor and contemporary gender sensibilities that continue to elevate men as breadwinners; thus, a focus on shame enables us to see the contradictory ways in which women are positioned in local and global economies in the 2000s. This case shows how Russian women's insertion into the global economy beginning in the early 1990s has required emotion work that is similar to that required in other locations where global capitalism has brought about reconfigurations of work lives and required people to renegotiate gender roles, expressions of power, and the meaning of labor in their lives.     

Gay marriages and communities of sexual orientation

This article focuses on gay male couples as they exist within friendship networks of other gay men. By comparing homosexual men who are part of a gay community with those who are less integrated into a gay community, we attempt to show that the sexual liaisons of the former are more “marriage-like.” Gays committed to a community of other homosexual men were found to live more often with their lovers, be more sexually faithful to their lovers, and to have more emotionally intimate relationships. Also, they were found more likely to associate with other gay couples. Commitment to a gay community was not found to be associated with length of a liaison, and it seemed that when respondents defined emotional intimacy in terms of sexual exclusiveness there may have been a tendency for disruption of relationships. The gay community validates the sexual liaisons of gay men in the same way that the heterosexual world validates the pairings of heterosexuals and transforms their subinstitutional sexual liaisons into the institution of marriage.     

DO RACE AND ETHNICITY MATTER AMONG FRIENDS?

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (or Add Health), a nationally representative sample of adolescents in 1994–1995, we examine if and how friendship activities differ among interracial, interethnic, and interethnic friendships of white, black, Hispanic, and Asian youths. We find that best friends are more likely than higher-order friends to be from the same ethnic group and that best friends report more shared activities during the past week than do their higher-order friendship counterparts. Hence, we argue that shared activities is a useful indicator of friendship intimacy. In general, interracial friends report fewer shared activities than do intraracial friends, although this difference is strongest for white respondents. Moreover, we find that white, Asian, and Hispanic youths all report fewer activities with their black friends. We find little difference in friendship activities between interethnic and intraethnic friendships. Our findings suggest that, even when youths manage to break racial boundaries in friendship selection, these friendships face greater challenges than do those between individuals of the same race.     

Showing friendship,fighting back,and getting even: resisting bullying victimization within adolescent girls’ friendships

Research suggests that about a quarter of bullying incidences occur within friendships. Yet little attention is given to the underlying social processes and wider macro-system forces that shape friendship victimization experiences. Guided by constructivist grounded theory and Wade's work on resistance, this research explored the phenomenon of victimization within adolescent girls’ friendships. Canadian women reflecting on their school-based victimization experiences were interviewed for this study. Results suggest that participants resisted victimization in important ways but that their resistance strategies were negotiated within gender expectations and ambient discursive constructions of resistance and victimization. Our findings illuminate the ways that discourses concealing women's resistance and privileging overt responses to bullying run counter to gendered expectations for resistance, leaving women in a double bind. Consequently, we found that retaliatory relational aggression allowed girls to deny their victim status while complying with gendered expectations for resistance but led to their bullying experiences being normalized and overlooked.     

Workplace friendships among social work,counseling, and human service educators: Exploring the impact of sexual orientation and friendships in workplace empowerment

Workplace friendships are deliberate bonds between people in the workplace in which various degrees of confidence, care, emotional support, solidarity, honesty, and trust are shared. For lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) academics in higher education, such friendships may be particularly important as sources of social and institutional support. In this study, the authors examine the relationship between workplace friendships and workplace empowerment among a sample (N?=?204) of LGB and non-LGB educators in social work, counseling, and human services. The findings, taken from this sample of university educators, indicate that sexual orientation and workplace friendship opportunities can predict workplace empowerment. Implications of the study are that workplace behavioral health practice and research that supports LGB and non-LGB workers in developing meaningful relationships at work can positively impact the higher education workplace.     

Boundaried Caring and Gendered Emotion Management in Hospice Work

Caring work, which is premised on caring for and caring about recipients, involves a great deal of emotion management. Feeling rules shape expectations about emotion management and are informally shared through workers’ narratives about quality work. Using qualitative data from hospice workers in the southwestern US, I find that narratives of quality within hospice include emotion‐management skills such as listening, truly caring, keeping calm and maintaining boundaries. Through an analysis of how workers discuss and map skills onto individual women and men co‐workers, this article highlights two gendered patterns. First, even when women and men are thought to share high‐quality skills, the ways these skills are described reinforce naturalistic understandings of gender. Second, men are seen to hold a broad range of emotion‐management skills, but women are not described as holding the most important emotion‐management skill: keeping boundaries. Understanding this differential application of emotion‐management skills helps us to understand how gender and gender inequality are reproduced within caring work.     

Relationships and identity of gay men in Mexico: A qualitative approach

Relationships are a fundamental element of human and social interactions because they provide us with meanings around physical and abstract objects that allow us to make sense of our reality and identities. There is little Mexican research regarding how gay men construct a sense of identity through their social interactions. This article describes the relationships that gay men in Mexico City have within their families, with their friends, and with their partners. Fifteen in-depth interviews are analyzed through elements of Grounded Theory and Critical Discourse Analysis. Results show that family reproduced homophobia with participants that taught them that their gay identity is socially unaccepted. This is deconstructed through friendships with other gay men. Partner relationships are lived as one of the last milestones in the construction of a gay identity. Some men question hegemonic values around sexuality through polyamorous and polygamous relationships. Conclusions show the importance of these social relationships for gay men's emotional well-being, but that their relationships are often impacted by cultural and interpersonal homophobia.     

A Korean Gay Man in the United States:

An increasing number of Koreans are immigrating to the U.S. Little information exists for human service professionals to draw from to help Korean gay men adjust to living in America. This discussion provides a historical overview of homosexuality in Korea with insights into contemporary Korean culture. An interview with a young Korean gay man living in the U.S. illustrates the concerns and problems these men experience as they struggle to adapt to gay life in this country. Racism from the gay community and alienation from the Korean American community are salient characteristics of the problems experienced by Korean gay immigrants. To better serve the needs of these men, helping professionals must develop relationships based on trust and friendship, understand Korean attitudes toward homosexuality, and be knowledgeable of how Confucian gender ideology influences same sex relationships involving Korean gay men living in this country.     

Family Relationships of Lesbians and Gay Men

The family lives of lesbian and gay people have been a source of controversy during the past decade. Despite prejudice and discrimination, lesbians and gay men have often succeeded in creating and sustaining family relationships. Research on same‐gender couple relationships, parent‐child relationships, and other family relationships is reviewed here. In general, the picture of lesbian and gay relationships emerging from this body of work is one of positive adjustment, even in the face of stressful conditions. Research is also beginning to address questions about individual differences among the family relationships of lesbians and gay men. Future work in this area has the potential to affect lesbian and gay lives, influence developmental and family theory, and inform public policies in the decade ahead.     

The Performance of Desire: Gender and Sexual Negotiation in Long-Term Marriages

We integrate theoretical traditions on the social construction of gender, heterosexuality, and marriage with research and theory on emotion work to guide a qualitative investigation of how married people understand and experience sex in marriage. Results, based on 62 in-depth interviews, indicate that married men and women tend to believe that sex is integral to a good marriage and that men are more sexual than women. Moreover, husbands and wives commonly experience conflict around sex and undertake emotion work to manage their own and their spouse's feelings about sex. We refer to this emotion work as "performing desire" and show how it is linked to gendered experiences in marriage and to competing cultural discourses around gender, heterosexuality, and marriage.     

“Women's Work”? Women Partners of Transgender Men Doing Housework and Emotion Work

Despite increasing family studies research on same‐sex cohabiters and families, the literature is virtually devoid of transgender and transsexual families. To bridge this gap, I present qualitative research narratives on household labor and emotion work from 50 women partners of transgender and transsexual men. Contrary to much literature on “same‐sex” couples, the division of household labor and emotion work within these contemporary families cannot simply be described as egalitarian. Further, although the forms of emotion work and “gender strategies,”“family myths,” and “accounts” with which women partners of trans men engage resonate with those from women in (non‐trans) heterosexual and lesbian couples, they are also distinct, highlighting tensions among personal agency, politics, and structural inequalities in family life.     

From the Margins to the Center

Abstract

How can research data about gender role strain in gay fathers improve clinical work with all men? This article describes a qualitative research study of 25 primarily White, middle to upper middle class gay fathers who had children in the context of a heterosexual marriage, and later established a gay identity. The fathers were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire in a focus group format. The data were analyzed using a grounded theory methodology. The narrative data chronicles the men's efforts to integrate their fathering identity and their gay identity. The findings are discussed using the theoretical framework of gender role strain. The authors propose that research on gay fathers has the potential both to challenge stereotypes about gay men and also to expand the fathering role for all men. The authors use clinical examples to illustrate how research findings from minority groups can expand knowledge about mainstream populations.