Our images of power are masculine in nature, and it goes all the way back to Homer, where Telemachus is telling Penelope to be quiet. Because speaking in public is, by definition, a male thing.Women are allowed voices only when they are victims or martyrs. If they dare to speak up, to take power, they are portrayed as harridans (Medusa) or as abominations (Clytemnestra).
I hate this.
Women and Power is a book that has detailed how it has been, and is necessary because until we see how it has been, we can’t see how it needs to change. I know where I want to go: women being in power just as much as men are and having that be totally normal. But how do we get from where we are now to there?
We need new images. We need women to, yes, wear pantsuits, but not feel like they are only allowed to wear pantsuits. Women shouldn’t be required to lower their voices to be taken seriously. Women should also be Elle Woods, triumphant in her pink dress, or Miranda Priestly, running her magazine with an iron fist.
But we need to make sure we don’t veer off into girlbossland. Part of the reason that women are not taken seriously in positions of power is because western society has a very masculine idea of what power is. There are more feminized versions, where people work together to empower each other, and we’re not just replacing terrible hierarchical powerful men with terrible hierarchical powerful women (arguably Miranda Priestly).
Frederick the Great of Prussia narrowly defined power as military power; Maria Theresa of Austria defined it as a strong society. The changes she made to Austria – taxing the nobles, improving education – allowed Austria to avoid the kind of revolution that happened in France in the next generation.
And so that’s why this book and this website make sense to me. We’re working to redefine how that works. I want to show where, throughout all of history, women have held power and have made improvements to society.
Women & Power, affiliate link to bookshop.org