Helena Løvendal-Sørensen & Nick Duffell - Going Beyond Gender Equality

How can men and women come together beyond the confines of traditional gender roles in a truly equal, creative, and liberated relationship? This is a question that has been compelling gender psychologists Helena Løvendal-Sørensen and Nick Duffell for over twenty years. And through their work with hundreds of men and women in Scandinavia and the UK, they’ve uncovered some intriguing insights into both the barriers and vehicles to this higher union. In this interview, gender researcher and EnlightenNext senior editor Elizabeth Debold speaks with Løvendal-Sørensen and Duffell about the compelling, confusing, and often controversial terrain of sexual relationships and gender liberation.

We first encountered the work of Løvendal-Sørensen and Duffell, who coauthored the 2002 book Sex, Love, and the Dangers of Intimacy, when they contacted us in response to Debold’s article “What Ever Happened to the Vikings?” in our recent issue on masculinity. We were interested in speaking to them because they have observed, much like Debold does in her article, that the large-scale social experiment in gender equality carried out in some of the world’s most progressive cultures over the past half century hasn’t necessarily led to the utopia that many had hoped it would. In fact, as they point out during the interview, in the process of creating a society where both genders are given equal opportunity, we’ve lost the ability to appreciate the inherent differences between men and women that allow both sexes to express themselves freely. In this sophisticated and fast-paced conversation, these gender experts discuss the difference between equality and sameness, and envision what an enlightened relationship beyond masculine-feminine polarities might look like.

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