Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 exptools 1/6/84; site ihu1g.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!ihu1g!smann From: smann@ihu1g.UUCP (Sherry Mann) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: Feminism and a double standard(?) Message-ID: <228@ihu1g.UUCP> Date: Mon, 27-Feb-84 14:19:12 EST Article-I.D.: ihu1g.228 Posted: Mon Feb 27 14:19:12 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 28-Feb-84 08:18:04 EST References: <641@orca.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Naperville, IL Lines: 30 According to Adrienne J. Smith, Ph.D., and Ruth F. Siegel, Center of Flexible Therapies, Chicago, in a paper - FEMINIST THERAPY: RETURNING POWER TO THE POWERLESS Under constraints of patriarch women resort to covert power tactics, using manipulative techniques which are nowhere acknowledged as power....Because women have been denied direct access to power, we have usually been described as a group _lacking_ in power.... In fact, powerless groups do exercise power, but this takes on different forms than that of the dominant group. Specifically, the power exercised by women tends to be covert, indirect, "ladylike." Increasing evidence indicates that the differences between the ways women and men express power are due to status rather than sex....Lower status people use the power of the powerless to influence those who are dominant over them. Women, who are low status people, "get what they want" through indirect, covert influencing techniques, often using the assigned sex- role appropriate behaviors of helplessness, dependency, coyness and appeal to emotions. There's more, and I realize this doesn't answer anyone's questions, but perhaps adds more information to the discussion. Would be interested in reactions. Sherry Mann ihu1g!smann