RE: More Thoughts on Women, Oppression and Porn
"Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself." --Gloria Steinem
In making this statement, Gloria was repeating a common aphorism, and it's an aphorism for a reason--because it's true.
You seem to confuse power with leadership or influence. Power confers leadership and influence. Leadership and influence do not confer power. One cannot be a leader without first being powerful--without first having the physical and mental constitution capable of sustaining the burdens of leadership.
Power is ultimately about self-mastery. Anyone who has mastered the self is powerful. So much so that the empowered hermit master is a mythical archetype--Jesus, Buddha, Yoda, Obi Wan Kenobi, etc.
So, society doesn't grant power. Society only grants leadership. And except for corrupt systems, it grants leadership only to the powerful--those who have mastered their self.
The "societal context" of which you speak is itself a result of the "evolutionary context" of which I speak. Take some away from studying feminism and Marx and read up on evolutionary biology. You'll be astounded by its findings, and by how well-supported they are.
Whether and how they choose to use or exploit this power is a differen story
@sean-king says,
Leadership IS power. Power is not a property of a person, it is a feature that arises as a result of social context.
I understand evolutionary biology and I don't believe it in any way contradicts feminism or Marxism, nor do I see why anybody else would. Like @veralynn said:
I could hardly have stated it better myself. One of the things that makes human beings so extraordinary is that we have transcended the state of nature and no longer must depend on our sexuality or physical prowess as a hunter/gatherer to survive, and our social interactions ought to, and should reflect that. We aren't cave-people anymore, and it is time to act like it.
Because you believe that power comes from others, you will never have said power, and you will never be a leader, my friend. Leadership is to power. Leadership is the result of exercising power.
That is fine with me, I'm an anarchist. I seek neither to rule nor to be ruled. It is hierarchy itself which has poisoned society.
Read up on the latest scientific studies regarding free will, or rather the absence thereof. We are definitely slaves to the unconscious. The only debate among scientists these days on this subject centers around whether we are completely under the control of the unconscious, or just mostly so.