What’s Love Got to Do with It: Women’s Constructions of the Reality of Romantic Love

• In Event: 578 - Section on Social Psychology Paper Session. Social Psychology of Sex, Sexualities, and Romantic Relationships

Abstract

We examine the ways young women define the realities of romantic love. Drawing on thirty in-depth interviews with college-aged women, we explore how these women, responding to idealized media portrayals and late modern ideologies, construct how love is or should be in real life by (1) negotiating prearranged patterns of love, (2) defining the self and love as projects to be realized through work, and (3) contextualizing love in a projected social world of marriage. In so doing, they upheld the centrality to women’s lives of romantic love, emotional intelligence, and the institution of marriage. Finally, we consider implications for how late modern ideologies of self-realization and responsibility affect women’s negotiation of intimate relationships and life planning.

Authors

• Amanda Koontz Anthony, University of Central Florida

• Lauren Norman, University of Central Florida

• Sarah Okorie, University of Central Florida