I am a student studying first year sociology in Australia. I am currently writing an essay on 'power in contempory society'. To do this I had to chose a sociological perspective...and obviously I chose feminism. The problem I am having is finding feminist information on power that isn't saying men have power over women. One book by Sargent is very helpful, taking the form of domination and dominated eg: men: women, High class: low class. What I am asking you is for some other information in this form. I need to present a 1,000 word essay - although short it needs to contain relevant info. It would be very appreciated.

Thanks for your note to FEMINIST.COM. I continue to be impressed that we have visitors from Australia who seek out FEMINIST.COM and we can truly feel like we have an international women's movement.

Anyway, I think that you are having problems finding information on "feminism" and "power" because in someway, feminism is working to do away with power. Feminism is about doing away with the idea of domination--any one person or group of people having domination over others. This can be based on race, gender, class or sexuality. The powers that be are often indirectly fighting against not only one group of people, but women, men and women of color, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, poor people. It's in this way that I believe feminism to be the most radical. For instance, feminism would be easier if it were about simply attaining a 50/50 power balance between men and women--we would just need to get some men and some women to switch roles. However, feminism is about re-doing our entire structure of measurment. And that is where it is mostly radical. I hope that helps.

—Amy