ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with a more detailed comparison of results from the survey and the interview. Survey results indicated that when the women were asked to indicate their agreement with statements embodying the attributes of traditional power, personal authority, and reciprocal empowerment, they chose those statements which represent personal authority and reciprocal empowerment. However, a more careful examination of the power attributes used by the women in their responses suggested that many of our participants found affinity and as a revised form of reciprocal empowerment. A majority of women in all seven groups personally agreed with the traditional power statement about resources, and a majority of women in six of the seven groups personally agreed with the survey statements about competition and struggle. Women need to understand that power relations, as Foucault has noted, constrain certain voices by forbidding speech, by labeling some speech as madness, and by creating societal metanarratives.
