Scholar explores the intersection of household labor and sexual desire
In recently published research, ñ graduate student Alexandra Liepmann finds that unequal division of household labor can lead to lower sexual desire in women
Alexandra Liepmann, a clinical graduate student in ñ Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, has spent the better part of her academic career studying human sexuality and the psychology behind romantic relationships. In her recent paper, Liepmann looks at the connection between these two areas by exploring how the unequal division of household labor can lead to lower sexual desire in women.
“There’s a lot of research on factors related to lower sexual desire, and those have really focused on hormones. You hear a lot about biology and testosterone, and then you also hear about personal factors like stress or being in an unsatisfying relationship contributing to low sexual desire,” says Liepmann. “It became clear that one of the areas that has been neglected in previous research has been the kinds of micro cultures in relationships that are really influenced by societal norms and expectations, like gender roles.”
Alexandra Liepmann is a clinical graduate student in ñ Department of Psychology and Neuroscience.
Liepmann began her studies in psychology as an undergrad at the University of Ottawa, Canada, becoming instantly hooked on her area of research after taking Psychology of Intimate Relationships and working in the school’s sexuality research lab. She then went on to earn her master’s in social psychology at York University, Canada, studying romantic relationships and sexuality under the supervision of one of her current collaborators and co-authors, Amy Muise.
“I loved the research, but I felt like there was a piece that was missing. Specifically, the ability to implement the research findings that I was seeing and talk to people about challenges in their relationship and their sex life,” says Liepmann. “So, after my master’s, I started looking at clinical psychology programs.”
Liepmann was drawn to ñ by the presence of her now supervisors, , who studies sexuality through the lens of sexual trauma and how that’s related to sexual outcomes, and Mark Whisman, who explores relationship functioning in couples. She felt it was the perfect fit, having such strong guidance in the two areas she wanted to combine. She was also excited by Boulder’s scientist practitioner model in clinical psychology, which would allow her to explore her focus areas.
Sexual desire and the division of household labor
This combination of people and process opened the door for Liepmann’s current research. From a young age, she was always intrigued by relationships and how people come together to form romantic connections and attachments. In this most recent paper, she uses this lifelong fascination, combined with her sexuality studies, to explore how the functioning of a relationship, when it comes to household labor, can affect sexual desire.
“We know that women often report lower sexual desire in long-term relationships when they’re with men. And we also know that in woman-man relationships, women tend to be taking on more of the household labor,” says Liepmann. “Oftentimes, these women are working full-time jobs and they’re still responsible for all the household labor when they come home. Previous research has started exploring the heteronormativity theory of low sexual desire, which suggests that structural gender inequities that ascribe men and women different roles in mixed-gender relationships may contribute to women reporting low sexual desire.”
But Liepmann and her co-authors, Muise and Emily J. Cross, decided to take a very specific look at this issue. They turned their research to look at the division of household duties and the role of women’s own gender role beliefs, assessing benevolent sexism – the view that prescribes traditional gender roles and praises women who adhere to the role of the caregiver and homemaker.
“We found that when women endorsed less of these views, so what we think of as more egalitarian gender roles and were doing more of the household work than their partner, they were reporting the lowest level of sexual desire,” Liepmann says. “But when they were splitting the chores equally, they were actually reporting the highest level of sexual desire.”
"Couples should be having honest and open conversations about division of household chores and be aware that this has implications elsewhere in the relationship,” says ñ researcher Alexandra Liepmann. (Photo: Vitaly Gariev/Unsplash)
The team conducted their research in two studies, recruiting participants through online platforms and performing thorough screening of the couples and their living situations. In the first study, they had 163 couples that participated in a baseline survey and three weeks of being observed. In the second, they replicated their work with 617 individuals who were in relationships. With this group, the team assessed the division of household labor using 59 questions, getting extremely granular with what went into running a household.
“We measured what people typically think of, like cleaning and cooking, but then we also measured tasks that people don’t often think about, like childcare development, like encouraging your child and asking them how their day was, as well as social planning, like planning date nights and social gatherings,” says Liepmann. “We definitely got into the nitty gritty, and we had a lot of women commenting after our study, ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t realize how much I was doing.’”
Egalitarian beliefs vs. benevolent sexism in gender roles
Through these studies, Liepmann and her co-authors found that women who held egalitarian beliefs when it came to gender roles had lower sexual desire when taking on more of the household labor. Women who held beliefs more in line with benevolent sexism, however, did not show this decline.
“Sexual functioning and relationship functioning are very highly correlated,” says Liepmann. “So, these are important issues, not just for sex, but also for the broader relationship. Couples should be having honest and open conversations about division of household chores and be aware that this has implications elsewhere in the relationship.”
As for the next steps of the research, Liepmann is looking at how these findings can be used to assist couples in having the kinds of conversations that help them align on issues of household labor in order to strengthen the relationship overall.
“Right now, my collaborators and I are working on assessing how couples are having conversations about division of chores and aiming to do an intervention study to see if intentionally assigning each member of the couple chores can make it more equitable,” she says. “I think this is a newer area of research and we need a lot more work in this area because there are so many important implications. The fact that this article is getting so much media attention, I think really demonstrates that people are resonating with this. I’m really excited about what’s going to come from here.”
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