>>Saying women are powerful in these surreptitious ways is a way of keeping
>>them
>>out of other legitimated and respected kinds of power.
>
>That could be. Hopefully, though, people would mean that, yes, those women
>are powerful and not read anything else into it like "and that's as
>powerful as women should get" or "and they're blessed to be that powerful".
>If I were to read anything into these kinds of statements, I'd hope it
>could be: yes they're powerful, and it's a start and I recognize that at
>the same time as I recognize that they're still not 'powerful' enough
>because they're not considered equal with men's 'power'.
>
Another interesting twist on the ways women in power can be portrayed :
Sometimes showing women in power situations is still misogynistic in
origin. For example, men who have fantasies about dominatrixes (sp?) or
nymphomaniacs who "force themselves" on men. These are still powerful
women, but the origin of that power comes from men who are letting the
women be powerful because it suits their fantasy life, not because it's
what the women truly want. Feminist concepts of power are often very
different from masculine conceptions of power.
Erin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:49 PDT