I had multiple conversations today concerning power management. In all of these, we acknowledged that women tend to use more subtle mechanisms to derive and maintain power, while men tend to just bulldoze. Backing up from this, i believe that what is relevant is not simply sex, but privilege. The more privileged an individual is, the more that power can be taken for granted and the less creative one needs to be to acquire it. Subtlety is an art, a subversive mechanism for overthrowing the norm. Thus, the more intelligent marginalized individuals consistently use subtle means to reach the top. Of course, this plays directly into my thoughts on context. Context is necessary for engaging subtlety, but not for brute force.
Were these thoughts inspired by Finding Nemo? I saw it for the second time last night, and found myself intrigued by the way in which the use of fish allowed the film to blend some gender stereotypes while leaving others intact. We’re not shocked that Dory (female) is larger and generally more capable than Marlin (male) is. On the other hand, Dory is explicitly non-rational, and operates in the world through intuition and emotional connection — cliched female behaviors. She does this as an intelligent response to her loss of power — she is disabled (short-term memory loss) and she has lost her connection to home and community (lost family). Marlin has the trappings of power (home ownership, established connection to community) and rationality (look before crossing the street), but it’s not doing him any good. He becomes whole when he’s stripped of his power and forced to play in a world in which he’s powerless and forced to operate from the female side…
Andrew – interesting analysis! I hadn’t explicitly made the connection between Nemo and my current thoughts, but maybe my subconscience did. In reading your notes, it’s also clear how integrated these thoughts are to my earlier thoughts on non-rational people.
The words “power management” make me think of my laptop battery. Sorry, had to say that.
There are people who are marginalized (men and women) who do not learn subtle social techniques for gaining power — they simply remain without much power. Consider as an example very nerdy, socially awkward men. They may have privilege in an economic sense, but there are definitely places in society that they will never be able to reach or feel comfortable. Like at an underground party. But I guess now I’m talking about the spaces that people who are marginalized in some way create for themselves, and how the mechanisms of mass culture appropriate that aesthetic. Too … many … concepts …
I agree with you that there is a factor of necessity that drives learning to read people’s emotional state more accurately.
Well, i would argue that it’s not just necessity but desire. You are right in that if people don’t want to acquire power, they need not figure out how to do it best. I’m definitely thinking about the upper eschelon of marginalized folks who have acquired power (not simply been born into money or acquired it through no effort of their own).
In the case of the nerdy boy, his innate privilege allows him to not learn anything about acquiring power, while even nerdy women have to work much harder and perhaps much differently. At the same time, the nerdy man that you are describing lacks the motivation to figure out how to acquire power in other places, but i would argue that should he want to do so, he is in a better position than the average woman. And besides, economic power is quite empowering.