Abstract. Concern is commonly expressed about the adequacy of women's social support. Typically, women are described as suffering from a 'support gap' or a 'relational deficit' whereby they give more support to others than they receive in return. Men are frequently faulted for not being able and/or willing to provide nurturing and emotional support to the women in their lives.This study was undertaken to examine women's perceptions of the nature and adequacy of their present support relationships. It was intended to learn on whom women typically rely for various kinds of support, how adequate they perceive this support to be, and what changes they would like to see.Results of the study indicated that the majority of women perceive themselves to receive adequate support from others. It was also evident that women feel that they receive about equal support from others in general and from their spouse/intimate, as they give in return. It was found that women, particularly married women, relied extensively on men for their social support, most often naming their male intimate as the most supportive person in their lives. Women tended to most frequently characterize the kinds of support they received from men as 'Shows Caring and Personal Interest', and 'Gives Encouragement, Praise and Confidence'. While women, particularly married women, relied more on men than on women for most kinds of support examined, they also expressed more dissatisfaction with the quality of the support received from their male support persons than from their female support persons. Major dissatisfactions described (regarding male support) were lack of understanding and acceptance, and inadequate expression of appreciation for their role in the home.The results suggest that men play a far more prominent role in providing valued social support for the women in their lives than they are generally given credit for doing. Belle (1982) on reviewing stress research in relation to women draws attention to a serious source of stress in women today which she feels has been overlooked. She calls this source of stress the 'support gap' to describe the phenomenon whereby women give more support to others than they receive in return. Belle explores contemporary theories of women's psychology and reports that women's 'sense of connection to and responsibility for others ... leads women to attend to and nurture other human beings and to provide them with...social support, or information leading the subject to believe that he is
Theoretical background