‘Us against the world’: Navigating gender norms in romantic dyadic love relationships

Gender is highly emphasized in Western societies, such as in the Netherlands. Traditional heteronormative ways of living are still very present, while feminist and queer movements have gained popularity over the last decades. This thesis provides insight into how gender norms as structures of power play out in dyadic romantic love relationships and how they navigate these norms together. The research is conducted by doing double interviews with nine couples — which are the combined lives of eighteen people. They show that gender stereotypes and the weaponization of biological determinism are often imposed on them. They also impose this on themselves, which reveals how gender norms are internalized to such an extent that they are experienced as dispositions of their identity. But regardless of how rigid or fluid couples have constructed their togetherness, no one appears to be fully satisfied with gender norms. Some couples illustrate a pressing will to challenge gender norms due to experiences of perceived injustice and are explicitly troubling them, other couples do so more subconsciously and implicitly.