Blindspot!
From Issue: 1048 [Read full issue]
Power With
The power paradigm wedded with the moral bankruptcy of gross individualism in the form of greed and desire that results from the madness of consumerism is a term that is most often used to reflect "power over," the will and action to exert control over others as utilities to achieve one's aims. Valantasis juxtaposed that understanding to consideration of the "power to." When gender activists and theorists assert the need for women's empowerment, those most accustomed to the term "power" in its "power over" dimension do not wish to have women's power asserted over them, reducing them to a utility for the benefits of others and dismissing their moral agency. Oddly enough, this is exactly what has been done with women's agency, the utilization of them and their empowerment or agency only as a utility to fulfill human care without recognition and more than mere lip service to the virtues of such an application. These discussions do disempower men, although they, as a class, have exerted their power over and dominated and destroyed the ecological environment and global economics for their own selfish utility, in the name of "civilization."
To empower women, or rather to fully acknowledge women's empowerment, whether in care work, public service, political authority, or spiritual leadership, as well as any number of acts of agency, is to acknowledge not only their "power to," but also how it is integral to a third level of power discourse emphasized in feminist ethics, that of "power with." There is a reciprocal relationship between acknowledging women's power and the enhancement of the social-cultural roles they have contributed to benefit humanity. A lesson that can be learned by any who seek to fully apply the Quranic mandate of agency would result from accepting that women's power has made an essential contribution to human well-being which is not limited to biology. As such, power with others is a universal goal certainly commensurate with the dominion Allah has given to humans over the rest of creation (22:65) and to fulfilling the ontology of agency Allah has assigned as intrinsic to all humankind.
Compiled From:
"Inside The Gender Jihad: Women's Reform in Islam" - Amina Wadud, pp. 53, 54