The Context of Women’s Power(lessness) in Heterosexual Interactions

Abstract

The topic of this chapter is the context of women’s power and powerlessness in heterosexual interactions. Many feminist scholars have stressed the relative powerlessness of women in sexual encounters with men. This asymmetry has been explained in terms of differential economic and social positions (e.g. Worth, 1989; Kippax et al., 1990; Gupta and Weiss, 1993), of differential sexual socialization and prior victimization of women (e.g. Russell, 1984; Allers and Benjack, 1991; Holland et al., 1992) and as a product of the prevailing definitions of (hetero)sexuality (e.g. Burt, 1983; Vance, 1984; Komter, 1985). Dominant discourses of heterosexuality and connected (institutional and social) practices provide an unequal distribution of subject and object positions for women and for men (Hollway, 1984a; Smart, 1995; Tiefer, 1995).