Power In Sexual Relationships | Page 5

and with a variety of interven-
tion types is crucial. As studies accumu-
late, the evidence base describing what
is feasible and what is acceptable under
different circumstances can be built.
Evidence in adapting and scaling up
promising interventions is also lacking.
Tackle partnership issues at the level of the
individual and the couple
There is tremendous need to evaluate
the relative effectiveness of providing
services for couples versus for individu-
als, and much scope for learning about
the sequencing of this (perhaps begin-
ning with the individual client and mov-
ing on to the couple). Crucial in the
work ahead is finding programmatic
means that make use of health service
interaction to improve communication
between partners. Finally, we must test
different kinds of communication
packages to find out which are most
effective in neutralizing gender-based
power imbalances.
Intervene and conduct research in
multiple arenas
In spite of the recognition that power
in sexual relationships is the result of
processes operating at multiple levels, it
is unusual for programs to introduce
multilevel interventions. Even more
pressing is the need for research that
examines gender-based power and its
impact at multiple levels (e.g., individ-
ual, family, community).
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Identify an approach to power that is
specific to adolescent sexual relationships
Adolescents are constructing their sexu-
al identities, becoming independent of
their parents, and are particularly sus-
ceptible to peer pressure; as such, they
are a key audience for interventions that
attempt to address power in sexual rela-
tionships. Yet, as numerous observers
have noted, such interventions must be
based not upon the experience and per-
spectives we derive from observing
adults, but upon the distinct realities of
adolescent sexual partnerships. Even
among adolescent girls there are at least
two subgroups—unmarried girls who
may be occasionally sexually active and
are generally trying to avoid pregnancy,
and married girls who are in regular sex-
ual partnerships and are often trying to
have children or are under pressure to
do so. The socialization of boys and
girls continues to create power dynam-
ics in sexual relationships that put
young women at a disadvantage and are
not beneficial to young men.
Conclusion
Further progress in the domain of power
relations within sexual relationships will
require both a willingness to be open to
experimentation and creative approaches,
and an effort to move forward simulta-
neously on research and program design.
Research has shown that effective meas-
urement of the gender-power dynamic
lies within the realm of practical field-
based study design. Despite initial skep-
ticism in many quarters, programs haveshown that gender-based power imbal-
ances are not necessarily impermeable to
intervention. Flexibility and adaptation
to change have been demonstrated by a
range of actors in programs, including
individual women and men, health care
providers, and the community at large.
While many challenges remain, the evi-
dence to date suggests a considerable
payoff for making acknowledgment of
the role of gender-based power an inte-
gral feature of reproductive and sexual
health programs.
This paper can be found in full
length and with full references in the
September 200
ledition ofStudies in
Family Planning.
The family planning literature
and research constructs offer a
far too conventional and limited
perspective on power in sexual
relationships (Discussant #
l,
Richard Parker)
Richard Parker, of Columbia University,
the State University of Rio de Janeiro,
and the Brazilian Interdisciplinary AIDS
Association, focused his comments on
the last of the tasks addressed in Blanc’s
paper—calling attention to some of the
gaps and problems that need to be
addressed in the future. What he gener-
ally found most striking in looking at the
body of research described was how
remarkably conventional most of the
work on power in sexual relationships
within the family planning field has
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been. He laid out five areas in which this
conventionality is expressed:
The very definition of power as it is used
in the family planning field is too narrow
The family planning literature pays lim-
ited attention to a series of develop-
ments in reflecting upon and researching
power more broadly. Until we begin to
incorporate into the health sciences
some of the theoretical insights in rela-
tion to power developed in the social
sciences, Parker said, he fears that we are
destined to repeat much of the work
that has already been done. It is impor-
tant to emphasize that power is a social
product that is socially produced, repro-
duced, and constructed. The most
important point of this understanding
is that it calls our attention to culture, a
word that also does not appear in this
literature in any meaningful way.
The program literature is not about
sexuality as much as it is about
reproductive practice
In most of the literature that Blanc
reviewed, the broad-ranging issues, prac-
tices, meanings, and representations in-
volved in sexuality are largely absent. By
narrowing the focus to heterosexual re-
lations, primarily reproductive heterosex-
ual relations, we miss a large body of
research that explores gender power, but
that does not focus only on reproductive
sexuality.
2Bringing this research into thediscussion would be a useful step for-
ward in thinking about the ways in which
power works in sexuality more broadly.
The social context within which the
family planning field’s approach is framed
is too limited
Parker found it striking that broader
issues of social change, globalization,
and the restructuring of social, political,
and economic relations are not men-
tioned, as if sexuality exists in a vacuum
with no relationship to the broader
social context in which it takes place.
This is particularly striking in relation
to sexuality, as we have watched in recent
decades the disintegration of patriarchy
in countries and cultures around the
world, changing family forms, and