Social Exchange or Stereotyping? Beauty, Status, Sex, and Couple Race

• In Event: 308 - Section on Sociology of Sex and Gender Refereed Roundtable Session and Business Meeting
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 10. Gender, Work and Family: Session III

Abstract

Interracial couples are often portrayed as exchanging racial status for other desired partner traits. Most commonly, researchers propose that white women leverage high racial status to make socioeconomically-advantageous matches with minority men. Similarly, minority women are thought to exchange beauty, sexual access, and domestic services for white men’s income and racial status (Sassler and Joyner 2011). But problematization of interracial couples, in combination with gender-stereotypical assumptions, may predispose researchers to over-identify patterns of exchange. Using a dataset with unusually rich information on both romantic partners, we examine the assumptions underlying gendered and racialized exchange theories, considering individuals’ attitudes and stated preferences in combination with sexual behavior and romantic outcomes. We find that interracial couples are socially and sexually liberal; they therefore differ from same-race couples on many measures. But these differences are inconsistent with gendered or racialized social exchanges. The popularity of exchange-based theories in the interracial relationship literature may propagate misleading portrayals of interracial couples.

Authors

• Elizabeth Aura McClintock, University of Notre Dame

• Shannon Zoe Sheehan, University of Notre Dame