Chapters 6 and 7 Summary and Analysis

"Changing Perspectives on Power"

The author begins this chapter with the comment that many active in feminist movement have been, and continue to be, ambivalent about power. "Women interested in revolutionary change," she writes, "were quick to label the exercise of power a negative trait, without distinguishing between power as domination and control over others and power that is creative and life-affirming." She goes on to suggest that many who claim and/or have experienced success in feminism have, in fact, come to embody and/or capitalize upon male definitions of power and success - and in doing so are perpetuating the very sexism they claim to be striving against. She also points out that this societal trend (towards women wanting and claiming power in the same way as men do) reveals that women do not, as both sexist...