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“How do we account for the fact that many women view their relationships with their male partners as egalitarian? In fact, within intimate heterosexual relationships, both women and men generate the fantasy of the egalitarian relationship. Studies by Elizabeth Grauerholz (1987) help us to understand this phenomenon. Grauerholz asked “if men possess greater power than women, why is there a tendency for both men and women in heterosexual dating and marital relationships to report an equal distribution of power in their relationships?” She found that, for both sexes, perceived egalitarianism within the relationship increased as perceived likelihood of finding another partner who was as good or better than their present partner decreased! This finding suggests that, when people feel they lack relational alternatives, they improve their evaluations of their current relationship. As women’s perceptions of getting a partner who is any better decrease, women’s perceptions of being in an egalitarian relationship with a male partner are prone to distortion in the direction of misperceiving the relation as more egalitarian than it is.”
- Loving To Survive by Dee L. R. Graham