NCJ Number
162759
Date Published
1996
Length
9 pages
Annotation
The author presents a perspective on power that identifies its multiplicity and resulting contradictions in the context of violence in organizations and examines the potential for change in specific circumstances.
Abstract
Feminist analyses have emphasized the continuity between patriarchal power and male violence, even though much depends on the way in which power is defined. Recent trends in social science theory have revolved around challenges to notions of power traditionally conceptualized as an entity that may be ceded from one person to another and that may be acquired by virtue of one's position within a social hierarchy. In the traditional conception, power is a possession of individuals, albeit one that can be lost and gained, and violence is often seen as the inevitable backstop of power. In the employment setting, women face certain obstacles to attaining positions of power. These obstacles concern promotion, training, leave and working hours, and harassment. Equal opportunity for women is a product of bureaucratic principles that focus on the formal organization, and organizational discrimination against women frequently occurs. Organizational power circulates through both formal and informal channels and has a definitive effect on women's access to promotions. Gendered power relations have deep historical roots in the patriarchal family, and the history of the organization of work reveals how profoundly gendered power relations have been inscribed in employment organizations. Female managers negotiate their power within a complex set of conditions, both social and psychological, that offer them greater or lesser access to multiple forms of power and that make them more or less subordinate to male authority. 7 references and 2 notes