Power In Sexual Relationships | Page 7

commenting that
the interest in the balance of power be-
tween women and men occurs within a
context of a renewed interest in equity
and equality as goals of development
(see box). This recent rise in the social
approach to development has occurred
because of increased recognition of the
tremendous economic, social, and polit-
ical costs associated with persistent in-
equalities that are unfair and avoidable.
Applying what has been learned
from much of the research that Blanc
reviewed as well as her own program-
matic experience, Gupta discussed sev-
eral critical dimensions of power:
Types of power: “Real” vs. “perceived”
Gupta defined “real power” as the actual
attributes that coincide with how society
views and defines power (e.g., education,
money, leadership). “Perceived power” is
derived power due to a strong association
in the aggregatebetween a single character-
istic (such as being a man) and the
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attributes associated with power. She
stressed the importance of changing per-
ceived power; however, she claimed, the
only effective and sustainable way to
change perceptions is to create changes in
real power, because over time those
changes in the aggregate will begin to
constitute a critical mass that will alter
perceptions. We must therefore argue for
changes in policies and programs that
seek to increase women’s access to key
resources and positions of leadership
rather than just trying to alter percep-
tions of male and female roles.
Context of power: Individual vs. aggregate
Gupta argued that increasing individual
women’s access to economic resources
and social status in a context where such
access is not the (aggregate) norm will
not necessarily afford them greater
power in sexual relations. For women to
accrue such power, individual interven-
tions must be complemented with
efforts to alter the aggregate picture of
women’s socioeconomic status.
Content of power: Economic, human, and
social capital vs. agency to act
Gupta asserted that empowering indi-
viduals requires strengthening access to
resources andbuilding individual agency
to use those resources, make decisions,
and take leadership. The former, she
said, is concrete, the latter is “magical”
(because one can create the enabling
conditions for the latter, but cannot
guarantee the outcome). Enabling
empowerment within development
interventions involves creating opportu-nities for learning problem-solving and
decisionmaking skills, altering practices
and perceptions of local institutions
and leaders, and building partnerships
within communities and between indi-
viduals and local institutions. A sense
of agency or empowerment, while
objectively associated with many posi-
tive health and development outcomes,
is itself largely subjective, a personal
perception of how one feels in relation
to others and one’s environment.
Measuring empowerment, therefore,
requires subjective indicators that can
capture this perception or experience.
Discussion
The first set of discussions was charac-
terized by a tension, present throughout
the meeting, between the broadest dis-
cussion of what is necessary to change the
11
“INEQUALITY”IN HEALTHis the difference
between groups based on objective indicators.
“Inequity” in health is a subset of inequalities deemed
unfair because they are avoidable and unjust. At the
World Conference on Women in Beijing in
l995,
participants debated which term to use. The UN,
with support from the NGOs, chose to use the con-
cept of “equality” because definitions of fairness,
inherent in the definition of equity, were subjective
and differed greatly between participants of different
ideological backgrounds, whereas equality could be
more objectively defined.

societal forces that create power imbal-
ances and the more narrow practical and
tactical approach of seeking to reform
traditional interventions (incrementally
improving upon existing reproductive
health service models). In this discus-
sion, as in others, many speakers acknow-
ledged the need for both, but there were
clear biases as evident in the quotes below.
For the broader inquiry:
If we are going to move forward we must
move all the way forward—not stay within
traditional indicators, modes of evaluation.
Work over the past twenty years has found
that using quantitative instruments is notenough. . . . What’s missing is a more holis-
tic understanding of the complexity of rela-
tionships, of love and power.
We are dealing with individuals but leaving
structures untouched. One of the biggest
structures is compulsory heterosexuality.
How is this dealt with when we talk about
gender roles?
Are rights-based approaches really meant to
be evaluated the same way as regular pub-
lic health interventions
?
For more immediate practical
approaches:
Most of us come from a public health back-
ground, so hearing about these structural
changes can feel a little overwhelming. There
are a number of things we can do within
our work to carry this out—for example,
integrating sexual violence into the work of
already existing programs. We need to think
about what we already do and how we can
be more sensitive.
I am in the camp of those interested in the
effect of A on B after controlling for C. I
feel optimistic about the possibility of quan-
titatively measuring and assessing impact
on sexual and reproductive health outcomes.
If we look at what has been done before,
there is a lot that is pretty good, including
multi-level measurement.
It is sufficiently ambiguous that things like
male involvement make an appropriate dif-
ference in public health terms that it is appro-
priate that we stick with randomized control
trials despite what was said this morning.
A concrete example of what can happen
when we proceed without attention to
underlying gender analysis and research can
12
GUPTA READ THE WORDSof a young abandoned
married woman in India who participated in a village
program as a community welfare worker, as one exam-
ple of a definition of empowerment:
I was told by my mother and grandmother not to talk to anybody.
I did not know anything beyond