Addendum

On Power in Relationships

There is a lot of talk these days about power: who has it, who doesn’t who wants it. In many male/female relationships, it is contended that men have the power, that they exercise it abusively, that they paycheck and physical strength give them an edge. While it is partly true that men are stronger than women, it is also true that women primarily date and marry men who are taller, stronger, and physically larger than them. It is true that, on the average, men are taller and physically larger than women, but one only has to look around to notice that the taller, stronger women rarely, if ever, choose male partners who are smaller than them. There may be reasons for this, i.e. defense against rape, help with heavy objects, etc., but I am only pointing out that on the physical plane, women ensure the imbalance of power by traditionally choosing to marry men who are, clearly, more powerful physically.

Secondly, women often say that men have the power advantage because of the economic power of their larger paycheck. As I noted earlier, this advantage exists not simply because of the present inequity in pay scales for the sexes, but also because women use the man as a means of economic mobility and that therefore, women have traditionally and largely continued to marry men who have greater incomes than them. So, by their very social actions, women ensure the power inequity.

Thirdly, on the psychological level, it has been the experience of this man and many other males in this society, that it is not so much an issue the men take power in relationships, but rather that women often abdicate their personal power. It is not so much an issue of the male demanding the primary control of the power situation, as it is of women traditionally (by their actions) saying, “Please, take my power and take care of me.” It is this knee-jerk desire to be taken care of physically and economically that ensures the inequitable distribution of power.

If men, alternately, by their actions and words, say they don’t want the unilateral power, that they want an equal partner, that they understand the nature and abuse of power, they (the men) are very often unable to have a heterosexual relationship at all, so strong is the socialized desire of women to be taken care of. The basic problem with this kind of imbalance is that it sets up a master/slave relationship. In that kind of model, the master does not have unilateral control – no relatively free person is going to give up all his or her power with nothing in return! The (the slave) is giving up their power precisely so that they can control the behavior of the master b ensuring that the slave is taken care of. As Paulo Friere pointed out in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, in any oppressive situation there need b two parties: one who does the oppressing and one who willingly allows the oppression to occur.

Since no situation is so completely simple, I would not be so bold as to assert that it is only women who wish to be taken care of. Clearly women have the dominant traditional claim to being taken care of physically and economically by men. But as Lillian Rubin points out in Intimate Strangers, “for too long now, the economic independence of men has been mistaken for their emotional independence, while women’s economic dependency has been taken to signify their emotional dependence as well.” She notes that there has been collusion by men and women to support the myth of emotional self-sufficiency, to ensure the primacy of men as economic caregivers. As she states, “In fact, men are both self-contained and needy. But the defenses they built long ago mask the need, and the structure of the society and the family within which they live out their lives supports the myth of their [emotional] self-sufficiency.” It is, once again, in support of the oppressive myth of the primacy of men as the economic unit that allows women (and men) to see men as strong, virile, powerful people who have little emotional dependency and who can [and are expected to] provide the main financial structure to a relationship.

This inequitable power differential is not to the advantage of women in many ways, no matter how invested they are in ensuring its survival. Let me give several examples:

1) Without a doubt, supporting the myth of men as the primary economic unit leads to lower self-esteem on the part of women, as well as vast amounts of depression [note the excessive use of Valium by millions of American females]. Supporting the myth that men should be the primary breadwinners and that, by use of a vast leap of faith, therefore males are the persons in the most enviable position forces women alternately into a role expectation that they find difficult to stomach and that is valued far less by the society.

2. 2) Domestic violence, with women often on the receiving end, finds its support in seeing men as the primary economic unit and therefore the one with the greatest amount of power in the relationship. In spite of mountains of information that shows the need for change, females [especially in the middle and lower classes] continue to get married very young, definitely before they acquire marketable job skills. As a result, they often find themselves in the oppressive economic situation where their social support of the MAPEU myth leads to their not being able to support themselves and/or their children should they need to leave the household of the abuser. In fact, by seeking men who would support the myth and ensuring that they not have to question their own belief systems, women also ensure that men who are abusers can have extreme power over these females.
   
   

3. 3) The third example of the foolishness of supporting the MAPEU myth is the explosive amount of date rape. This author read an article in Parade Magazine on date rape some years ago, wherein the editors advised females to “date men who were more considerate” and possibly arrive at the date in a separate vehicle. Though these suggestions may be helpful, one of the main problems in date rape is the unfortunate belief, by many males, that being the primary economic unit gives them the right to force sex on women in return for that financial outlay. One of the real ways in which females can at least somewhat alleviate this dysfunctional rationale is to not support the MAPEU myth and pay their own way. If they don’t treat men as financial objects, there is less likelihood that men will have the justification [however warped] to treat women as forcible sexual objects. As one writer stated, women who treat men as paychecks and meal tickets should not be surprised when they are treated as ‘a piece of ass’ in return.
   

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Mariposa Men’s Wellness Institute was founded in 2001

to help men become emotionally healthy.