Revisiting the Concept of Gender Contract

Abstract

All societies have some sort of social consensus or agreement that steers the relations between genders, and which shapes how gender relations are lived and organized, as well as the sociocultural norms and expectations for different genders. The concept of gender contract has been used since the 1980’s to understand and analyse these sets of implicit and explicit rules that govern the relations between genders. However, even though the concept has been widely used, the concept itself has not been a focus of research. Therefore, in this article, we conduct a systematic literature review of the research and conceptual understandings regarding gender contracts. From the studies included in the systematic literature review, we ask: What kinds of gender contracts does the body of research present? What do the gender contracts govern? We also pay attention to issues and developments that have the potential for change in gender contracts. Finally, we note the silences and absences in the research literature, revealing what kind of topics remain hidden, under-studied, or not studied at all.