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Power Analytical Essay

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HOW IS THE POWER EXPRESSED
Feminists must be careful not to use such male-biased frameworks and linguistic conventions, because their controlling assumptions produce androcentric knowledge, as exemplified by Rosaldo and Lamphere’s (1974) finding of universal male dominance due to their use of male-biased data, binary categorizations of women’s and men’s activities, and overgeneralizing cross-cultural methodology in validity of Veblen’s (1899) Most characters in this volume of play is not only present in monolithically ideal cultural gender roles, but also provide evidence of individual variations in behaviors. The Medea’s further show diversity in gender ideologies. Feminists contest monolithic constructions of a polis culture’s gender ideology, …show more content…

Different discussion on power is particularly helpful in delineating meanings of power. What kinds of power are relevant to a study of gender? The distinction between “power over” and “power to” is useful here, “power over” being the ability to cause someone else to do something not in their own interest, while “power to” constitutes autonomy. These ways to understand power are fundamentally different, and conflating them is the source of much confusion about power (Wylie 1992). Kent describes the “absence of power” (meaning the absence of “power over”), and provides a typology of symmetrical and asymmetrical power in gender relationships. Sweely notes power in social relations, access to knowledge, and access to the supernatural. Power can also be multi-centered. Woodhouse-Beyer implies that power is the ability to send “messages” affecting “beliefs, emotions, and perceptions of indigenous populations”—thus power is perceived in the hands of the women mediators of a creolized culture. These play demonstrate that power is not given or taken once and for all; it needs to be maintained, and must be negotiated. Several characters acknowledge or imply that power cannot be reified as a “possession,” but that it is contingent and shifting. Power may be manipulated through control of …show more content…

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