To experience empowerment we must act on a sense of self worth, value and give voice to our own needs, and give equal validity to our own needs as to others'. As we develop a sense of empowerment, we begin to discover that a conflict of needs actually can present us with a creative challenge to imagine solutions that can empower all parties involved (rather than fearing that a conflict of needs must necessarily result in a "win-lose" battle).  I offer the following vignette as an example:

The word "compromise" does not adequately describe the process of creating a "win-win" solution.  Compromise implies that neither side really gets what they want, whereas in "win-win" solutions, both sides get as much if not more than they wanted originally.  Assertiveness means acting from a place of respect – for self and other – and assuming equal value to the needs of self and other.  This presents many dilemmas that can also be seen as possibilities.  Power--the power of creative problem solving and acting--is mobilized rather than suppressed.

Power

Traditionally power has meant different things for men and women, taking on more positive connotations for men.  Think of the following words, first for men and then for women.  Pay attention to the feelings they evoke:

                     Men                                           Women

                   Powerful                                  Powerful
                   Aggressive                              Aggressive
                   Forceful                                     Forceful
                   Ambitious                                Ambitious
                   Assertive                                  Assertive
                   Competitive                            Competitive
                   Expert                                         Expert
                   Authoritative                          Authoritative

 When women think of asserting our power, some of us have many negative associations and blocks to overcome.  I believe there are two good reasons for these blocks:
1. Women have traditionally been expected to defer to men, and have internalized the dominant cultural expectations of females as submissive and powerless

and

 2. There is something wrong with the present system of power distribution for all people, which we, as women, may be particularly sensitive to, having so deeply learned to respect the importance of other people's needs.

 As we endeavor to compete with men as their equals, some of us feel there is something sour about climbing up a ladder on top of other worthy people's heads, something deceitful about the notion of inferiority and superiority in our fellow human beings. We see that to gain others must lose, and having been relegated to losing for thousands of years, we may not feel comfortable inducing that experience in others.

When some people have less power than others do because external forces (e.g. money, status, physical strength, military force) block them, many problems arise for both the "winners" and the "losers".  The "losers" become afraid to express their needs because they fear (often rightfully) that what little they have will be taken from them.  They then become afraid to even feel their needs, to admit to themselves that they want something.  They become immobilized.  And, in certain critical ways, they stop growing; cease to thrive; development (the Power from Within) is blocked. The "winners" then miss out on the experience of sharing with equals and become self-preoccupied.  Their development is also blocked.

Let's consider these questions:

1. How do we reclaim our rights to power and effectiveness in the world without doing so at the expense of others?

2. How can we, as women, integrate the profound knowledge we gain from mothering and being nurtured by our mothers -- i.e., that we are each special, unique, and worthy in our own right, into a culture where value is so often seen in material terms?

We may want to begin by developing our own vocabulary to describe our experiences and perceptions.  Without words to communicate our experiences, we are trapped and limited.  If power only means the power to force others to do our will, we will feel that power is foreign to us, awkward and unfamiliar.  But power means many things, and many aspects of power can feel right for us.

I offer the following words and phrases to begin reclaiming our own vocabulary taken from Simos 1987 - (see below*)

 Power Over: the ability to force others to do your will through physical or financial coercion.  The power inherent in social or economic positions, or physical size or strength, regardless of skill or ability.

 Shared Power: power whose goal is to uplift or teach others to bring them to parity, as with a parent/child, teacher/student, or psychotherapist/client relationship

 Referred Power: the power others give us because they value, respect, and/or are attached us

 Expertise Power: the power others give us because they count on our knowledge and judgment

 Power With: the power to be effective interpersonally, to persuade, to inspire (not “command” or force) respect

Power From Within: the power of growth and development inherent in all living things.  It is the power to change, to overcome obstacles, to face our own fears, to learn new skills, to fail, and to try again.

Power can be used to destroy or create, to belittle others and over-inflate the self, or to belittle the self and over-inflate others.  We may call the use of power to harm or belittle the self passive power, and to harm or belittle others aggressive power. In contrast, assertiveness can be seen as the use of power to enhance and respect both self and other.  Assertiveness training, then, can be a way for women to reclaim their rights to power and effectiveness in the world without doing so at the expense of others. 

 Suggested Reading

Jean Baker Miller, M.D. (1976). Toward a New Psychology of Women. Boston: Beacon Press

Pamela Butler (1981) Self-Assertion for Women. New York: Harper & Row Publishers

Margaret McIntosh () Feeling Like a Fraud a Work In Progress Paper of the Stone Center for Developmental Studies at Wellesley College, Wellesley, Mass., 02181