What do you expect your experience of being a partner will be?

She means in a relationship and she’s assuming (as am I) that you will be partners with a man. It’s a women’s studies course so it’s about exploring how you’re a woman in relationship to the man since, as far as we’re concerned in women’s studies, all genders are social constructs and exist in relationship to other genders.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir I don’t think she is assuming the relationship would be a man at all. We are supposed to talk about our sexual orientation also, so what do you think the LGBT people are going to talk about?

That kind of question leaves open a wide variety of interpretations – but that might be the point, to get the students discussing and thinking about their preconceptions and points of view regarding the topic.

Also when in doubt state the perspective you are approaching the question from, that way your professor understands where you’re coming from and how you interpreted the question.

Have you read any Mary Wollstonecraft yet? I think your professor wants you to talk about the roll you would expect to take when you are in a long term, committed relationship. It is the same for everyone, as to roles and expected responsibilities go. Are you an organiser who likes things tidy and likes sitting down with the bills? or are you creative and free spirited and could see yourself taking care of the children and enriching their lives, getting messy with crafts and fingerpaint? Of course, it is completely ridiculous to speculate about your role in a relationship where the other part is completely unknown to you, when you don’t know their strengths or weaknesses yet, so you will have to make up some mythical person and go into fantasy land with the whole scenario.

Will you be the dominant partner and manage the day to day spending and duties? Do you want to find a partner who does that who you can be devoted to and look after while they pursue a career and you commit yourself to raising the children? Or some mix in between?

I’d say it is impossible to predict given the complete and utter impossibility to determine outcome in any relationship/ situation that is based on a hypothetical future.

The only value of this question is in, as has been mentioned, getting people to examine their belief systems and expectations that may or may not be relevant and/or true.

@Coloma I feel the same way. Not only do I have to essentially create a relationship with someone that doesn’t exist, at this time in my life I have no experience in this department, nothing to draw from. How am I supposed to know what role I will play, and why does this even matter to the prof?

I would guess that, given the premise of the paper, the professor isn’t necessarily looking for your own experience so far, but what you expect from a partnership from what you grew up knowing. For example: Were you raised by two parents? Did they share equal financial responsibility or did one earn and one maintain the household? Did you notice issues from your upbringing that you either want to emulate or avoid? Are your expectations of your future relationships similar or different from what you’ve known and how is that influenced by the social/financial status you grew up with?

Some possible sample questions:

Do you expect to get married, or would you be OK with just living together, or carrying on a long term relationship without living together?

Would you be OK with getting married/moving in together after one month, 6 months, 1 year, 2 years, 5 years? How much time would you think is ideal for getting to know a potential spouse well enough to move in together?

Same question as above, only with regards to having sex with the potential partner?

Is it very important, somewhat important, not very important, or nuetral to you to have children?

If your partner wanted children and you did not, how would that make you feel and how would you deal with it?

If you wanted children and your partner did not, how would that make you feel and how would you deal with it?

If you wanted children, but could not produce your own, would you decide not to have children, consider adoption, consider a surrogate, choose activities or a career that involved taking care of children, become a foster parent, decide to have pets instead, other?

How would you feel about having a partner that was considerable older or younger than yourself? Do you think that having a partner that is considerably older or younger than yourself could cause any potential problems within your extended family dynamic, with your future plans (desires, expectations, financial security) or with regards to continuing to love/like/appreciate your partner, other?

Do you expect that you and your partner will have an equal relationship with regards to who makes the decisions, who controls the finances, how the children are raised, which religion (or lack thereof) you will participate in, how the chores are divided up, other? If you don’t expect the relationship to be exactly 50/50 on all things, how do you envision the division of labor and responsibilities and decision making tasks?

Do you expect that you and your partner will be together until one of you passes away, or do you expect that relationships always end and people move from one partnership to the other throughout their lives?

Would you be OK with having something like an open marriage where either you or your partner has romantic relationships with other people?

Would you be OK with your partner, finding another romantic partner if you were to become incapacitated mentally or physically?

Would you think it’s OK for you to find another romantic partner if your partner were to become incapacitated mentally or physically?

Are you now, or do you expect that you might ever be attracted to someone of the same sex?

If you were in a relationship with your partner and you felt attracted to someone else (male or female) would you act on that attraction? If so how? Would you leave your partner, cheat on your partner, tell your partner and hope he/she is OK with it, invite your partner to join in the new relationship, not engage with the potential new partner at all, try to just be friends with the new person, other?

Same question as above, but how would you feel if your partner did any of the above actions, if he/she found a new person that he/she was attracted to? What would you want your partner to do? Drop the other person completely, carry on an affair secretly, tell you about it and continue the relationship with the other person, tell you and break up with you, ask you to join in the relationship, allow your partner to continue with the person as only a friend, other?

How would you feel if you had to take care of your partner if he/she became ill, mentally capacitated or handicapped?

Would you expect your partner to take care of you if you became ill, mentally incapacitated or handicapped?

How do you expect to interact with your partner’s family? Describe.

How do you expect to interact with your partner’s friends (both male and female, old and new)? Would you want your partner to stop interacting with any of his friends that you deemed un-acceptable? Would you allow your partner to interact with friends that you do not like in your home? Would you allow your partner to interact with friends only if you are not involved? Other.

How would you react to hearing or finding out that your partner does not like/approve of one of your friends? Would you tell him/her it’s none of their business and continue the relationship? Would you tell your friend that you can no longer associate with them? Would you ask your partner to get to know your friend better? Would you go to counseling alone? Would you suggest that you and your partner go to couples counseling?

There’s hundreds of other questions that you can ask, but the main subjects to focus on are “family dynamics” and “sex” and “children” and “money” and “equality within the relationship.”

@desiree333 perhaps try approaching it this way: ‘what role do you think you want to play (or believe you will be expected to play) and why?’
In other words, what do you think you want out of a relationship, what do you believe you will need to, or will be expected to, contribute, and why do you think that. It really doesn’t sound like you need to consider your experience (or lack thereof), rather your expectations which I believe is likely the point of the exercise.

Also, if what you’re reading here doesn’t seem to fit the gist of the class or question, you can usually ask the professor or one of the TA’s to clarify if you’ve time.

@desiree333 Well they will talk about their partners.

Short answer here. If living with somone is his meaning, then it means 50–50 on everything. The bills, the chores, doing your part to keep your housing clean, respecting each other for both the good and the bad, and have a contract between you two, just in case one partner decides to skip the relationship.

This type of dated and signed contract will be legal in civil court for either one of you.

@desiree333, what you are being asked to do is examine your “social position to identify issues of privilege and oppression in your own unique situation. Social locations analysis assumes that to some extent imbalances of power exists within virturally all relationships and that any given individual may have both issues of power and oppression in her or his unique social location.”

http://books.google.com/books?id=3Pft0bzfjSYC&pg=PA158&lpg=PA158&dq=social+location,+and+privilege&source=bl&ots=3Ns01AClVB&sig=0dWU9guIz96UwMFuStcgyiNewzg&hl=en#v=onepage&q=social%20location%2C%20and%20privilege&f=false

I imagine this question relates to the societal context in which you live and how that society influences your expectations of intimate relationship… I would simply write about what you expect will be your experience of an intimate relationship, how you will play your part and how you expect your partner will behave towards you, what it will be like living in that situation.

@Kardamom Thank you! Your answer has helped me a lot.

@desiree333 Let us know how your project works out : )

@Kardamom It worked out very well. I focused more on different things instead of this “being a partner topic”. I haven’t gotten my mark yet, but it is handed in. I hope I get a good mark! Once I got going and started writing it became much easier.

@desiree333 That’s great! Please let us know what your teacher thought about it. Hope you get an A!