Gender as Status and Power
A feminist theory
Janet Shibley Hyde (2004)
Half the Human Experience
The Psychology of Women, 68-70.
Feminism has a rich, articulated theoretical basis. Feminist theories were created by no single person. Instead, numerous writers have contributed their ideas, consistent with the desire of feminists to avoid power hierarchies and not to have a single person become the authority.
Feminists view gender as similar to a class variable in our society. That is, males and females are unequal just as the lower class, the working class, the middle class, and the upper class are unequal. Men and women are of unequal status, women having the lower status.
After reviewing studies of people's interactions in small groups, two sociologists concluded that the best explanation for the results was the gender-as-a-status-variable hypothesis, proposed by feminists. When a small group of people are brought together to work on a task, sharp gender differences sometimes emerge: The men are highly task-oriented, making lots of comments to "get things done," whereas the women are more oriented toward the relationships among the group members. Yet other studies do not find this pattern of gender differences. The authors concluded that these contradictory results can best be explained by the hypothesis that men have higher status than women. Thus in small-group interactions men are expected to be more competent than women, and competitive and dominating behavior is therefore seen as legitimate for men but not for women. However, in certain special circumstances these effects can be reversed, and assertive, competitive behavior becomes legitimate for women; examples of such situations are (1) when a woman has been appointed to be the leader of the group by an authoritative outsider such as the experimenter, and (2) when the content of the task is seen as an area of competence for women rather than for men, such as evaluating the quality of daycare centers. Thus these authors concluded that the evidence--at least from studies of small-group interactions--supports the hypothesis that gender is a basic variable.
From the observation of the lesser status of women comes another basic feminist argument, that sexism is pervasive. Women are discriminated against in diverse ways, from the failure of the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (which means that it is still legal to discriminate on the basis of gender) to the male centeredness of psychological theories, from the different pay scales for women and men to the boss propositioning his secretary. Thus sexism exists in many spheres: political, academic, economic, and interpersonal.
A closely related concept is the inequality of power between men and women, men having greater power. Male dominance is therefore paired with female subordination. One of the classic works of the feminist movement is Kate Millett's Sexual Politics (1969); she defined "politics" as the study of power, and thus in analyzing sexual politics she focused on power relationships between women and men. The areas of male power and dominance are diverse and occur at many levels, from institutions to marital interactions. Most political leaders are men, and men therefore have the power to pass laws that have a profound effect on women's lives. Feminist analysis has extended the power principle to many other areas, for example, to viewing rape not as a sexual act but as an expression of men's power over women. The concept of power is key to feminist analysis.

One saying of the feminist movement has been "the personal is political." Once again, "political" refers to expressions of power. Feminists have reconceptualized many acts that were traditionally viewed as personal, as simple interactions between individuals, into acts that are seen as political, or expressions of power. As examples, Mr. Executive pats the fanny of Miss Secretary, or John rapes Mary. Traditionally, these were thought of as personal, individual acts. They were understood to be the product of an obnoxious individual such as Mr. Executive, or of a rare, disturbed individual such as John, or of the inappropriately seductive behavior of Miss Secretary or Mary. The feminist recasts these, not as personal acts, but as political expressions of men's power over women. The greater status of men gives them a sense of entitlement to engage in such acts. At the same time, by these acts men exert power and control over women.
Notes: Emphases added are Dr. B.'s. Citations for the conclusions in this section may be found in the original book.