Gender and Power

The article by Errol Miller, “Gender, Power and Politics: An Alternative Perspective” was complex but contained a great deal of information about why women are underrepresented in government and what we as a society can do to shorten the gap. Miller made a lot of interesting points; one of the first was during his discussion of patriarchy. Miller says, quoting another scholar, Collins, that it is often easy for groups to see how they are oppressed. It is more difficult for them to see how they add to the oppression of others. It is sometimes difficult when there are so many different groups to identify with, also. Do black women identify first as women or as black? As a class we’ve discussed questions like that a little but not really in depth, and I think it is hard to explore things like race and gender together without first picking them apart and viewing them separately.

Miller goes on to describe his definition of patriarchy, which includes the ideas of genealogy, generation and gender. It was a very comprehensive definition, and I feel that it managed to encompass more and get the full picture of patriarchy as opposed to some of the other definitions that he cited.

After the discussion of patriarchy, Miller discusses the idea of gender as opposed to sex, and the question of biology versus culture in regards to sex differences. The one thing he wrote that really struck me was about the physical differences between men and women. An idea behind sex differences between men and women is that men are better-suited to government positions because they are competitive, stronger, and more rational. But as Miller points out, the men holding government positions aren’t super masculine. He states that the qualities that we as a society define as masculine “more aptly describe their bodyguards!” Overall, Miller’s use of expanded definitions, history of patriarchy, and ideas of how to achieve gender equality were fairly convincing, and the article was helpful to understanding the power play of gender.