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In the late ‘90s an article appeared in the journal American Psychologist titled “Love, sex, and power: Considering women’s realities in HIV prevention.” At the time many researchers concluded that the major contributing factors to the rise of HIV in women were the social, economic, and interpersonal inequities faced by women, especially minority women.
Safer sex, specifically condom use, requires women to control the behavior of men. Since women are afforded little power in society, this researcher argued, they are limited in their ability to practice safer sex (Amaro, 1995).
It follows that if, as researchers have said, "gender subordination is the major factor in sexual risk behavior" then, as they conclude "public health campaigns aimed at women cannot be effective unless they recognize that men and women begin their sexual encounters as unequal partners." The implication is that models and interventions of behavior change that fail to take into account gender differences cannot adequately explain or predict sexual behavior among heterosexuals.
This article was the beginning of my dissertation. Instead of jumping on the powerless woman bandwagon, I wondered if power really was all in the hands of men. Rather than relying on anecdotal or historical data as these researchers had done, I wanted empirical evidence of the relationship between gender and power. In my dissertation, I looked at various measures of power. The first one I called “say so” power that asked participants "who has the say over how much time you spend together, who makes the important decisions in your relationship, who says more in conversations, who is more dominant, who gets their way when you disagree, and, who has more say over what you do for fun?" In regards to “say so” power, I found there was no relationship between gender and power, neither sex had the upper hand. The one exception was for men with highly traditional gender role beliefs. In this case, these men reported having more power in their relationships. Interestingly, women with high traditional gender role beliefs did not report holding lower power in their relationships.
But it was the second measure of power that I found most enlightening. This measure of power was what I called “give in” power. In this case I told participants to imagine that they really wanted to use a condom for sexual intercourse with their partner but the partner did not. I then asked them: “how likely are you to give in to your partner’s request for unsafe sex? When power was measured this way, there was a very strong gender difference. But it wasn’t the women who said they’d give in; it was the men!
A possible reason for this was articulated almost 100 years ago. In 1921 E. A. Ross published his Law of Personal Exploitation which states that the partner who cares less can exploit the one who cares more. In general, as the stereotype goes, we think that men want sex more than women. If so, basic economic theory would tell us that if you have control over something that someone wants, you have power over them. So in this case, rather than seeing women as being less powerful in their sexual relationships, one could argue that they are actually more powerful. For example, sex workers are often seen as powerless and easily exploited. Yet 92% of sex workers say they can successfully get a male client to use a condom. The important takeaway is that, if men say they would forego condom use, even if they wanted to use one, rather than risk not having sex, then it is men who are at greater sexual risk, not women.
A major problem with seeing power as a product of gender is that it negates that power is also a dynamic in non-heterosexual relationships. Many people might assume that in a gay male relationship, the “bottom” is the less powerful partner; however, there is research in both the gay male population and the BDSM population that shows significant sexual power stemming from the submissive role. It’s called topping from the bottom and is based on the belief that the submissive partner actually controls the couple’s sexuality through the power of consent; the dominant is only powerful at the behest of the submissive partner. Maybe the task is not to think of power as just something someone takes, but to see that it can also be evidenced by what someone gives.
