Why Don’t I Feel as Powerful as I Really Am? How White Culture Masks Women's Power
Playing at Postures of Power. Photo credit: Jack Algeo
Recently I’ve heard from several White women who understand their privilege, yet have trouble feeling their power. This happens to me as well, and when we feel relatively powerless, it’s that much harder to be confident taking antiracist actions. Because we can find ourselves in the best position to call in or call on someone at work who has made a racist comment (see my earlier article, Creating an Organizational Call-in Culture), White women need to explore what makes us feel less powerful, and ways to change that mindset. So, as you start the new year, here are 3 ways of thinking about power to say goodbye to, and 3 to welcome into your life.
A Call-On to White Women, Including Me
Some years ago, I received a call-on about this very thing. I was taking a Coaching for Racial Equity course with a cohort of about a dozen educators, mostly White women. None of us was new to conversations about race. At one point, one of our Black colleagues said to us, “You White women, you don’t think you have any power but look at me! Y’all have much more than I do. Why can’t you use it?”
She was right. For one thing, as white women we had the opportunity to be in on the “backstage” conversations where only White people are present, including powerful administrators and community members. Most of us also had the benefit of greater job security - we were “certificated” employees, salaried and tenured professionals. She, like many Black public school Deans, Family Liaisons and Equity Specialists, was a “classified” employee with an hourly job, not eligible for the job security of tenure.
Her comment stopped me like a cold splash of water to the face. It snapped me out of my image of myself as powerless. I had been telling myself a litany of what I did not have the power to do, things like hiring, agenda-setting, curriculum decisions and policy-making. All of these felt like consequential actions and I told myself that if only I had the power to do them, I could make a dent in racism. What she had called on me to reflect upon was not what I could not do, but what I could.
Still, I had a lot of soul searching to do in order to figure out why I felt relatively powerless. What old narratives or norms had I swallowed that were making me feel that way? (For background on cultural norms see my previous article, Stuff I Learned In Kindergarten that I Really Need to Unlearn). Below are three prominent narratives and how they operated in my life.
Old Scripts About Power:
You’ve got to be up on the hierarchy to have or use power.
In US culture, we have a dominant Power & Status norm that says that these things are ascribed to people according to their titles and degrees. In the workplace, titles also come with a hierarchy of specific positional authority. Clearly, the ability to hire and fire people, set agendas that determine whose voices are heard, and make consequential decisions are all expressions of power. I had advanced degrees so my expertise was acknowledged, but my “Arts and Integration Specialist” position didn’t supervise anyone, and the agendas and decisions I made were always suggestions until someone up the chain approved them. Because my prior positions in other organizations had been a “Department Chair” and a “Director,” that came with supervisory duties, I acutely felt the lack of that agency as diminished power.
You need to present logical articulations of your ideas for them to be powerful.
White, Western culture normalizes and values Analytical knowledge over more holistic Integrative knowing. We also value Direct communication that gets right to the point without straying into feelings - particularly at work. In general, ideas that are backed up by logical arguments and communicated in a direct, cool and unemotional manner are more likely to succeed. Because I got a lot of practice using analytical and detached communication skills in my Zoology master’s program. I can often muster the appropriate amount of these to come off as “professional.” But, in situations where someone is being treated or spoken of unfairly, I typically perceive that in a more intuitive, gut-feeling way. There’s an emotional component, be it disappointment, outrage, frustration, or even confusion. And because of my early training to devalue integrative knowing and emotion, I felt powerless going into a conversation where I didn’t have my rationale lined up ahead of time. I often self-censored, waiting for that beautiful, logical way of explaining to arise. It usually did, but it often took days, and by then the window for immediate communication had passed and the situation had moved on. The norm about integrative knowing not being valuable had become a self-fulfilling prophecy for me.
Power is something that you wield, with confidence, to gain status.
This is related to Gender norms. As I mentioned in the Stuff I Learned in Kindergarten article, girls are normed as compliant, quiet, nice and polite from their very first day of school. By contrast it’s considered “normal” for boys to be loud, aggressive and physically rough. This extends to communication styles. Socio-linguist Deborah Tannen says that “From childhood, most girls learn that sounding too sure of themselves will make them unpopular with their peers.” Hence girls learn to downplay their certainty. In contrast boys gain status by speaking confidently, leading to a one-upmanship style of conversation. Boys learn to minimize communication of their doubts. This communication style gives boys practice in communicating with an air of confidence - even if they aren’t actually sure they’re right. Like many women, I can only speak confidently if I’m positive I’ve got it right. What makes this important is that human brains are wired to believe confident statements over tentative ones. This is known as Confidence Bias, one of 13 hardwired human biases that Brian McLaren writes about: “We often prefer the bold lie to the hesitant truth.” Because of the gendered way that we learn to communicate, this all adds up to a bias in favor of believing what men say. In my work life this in turn led to a feeling of disempowerment. Why bother to bring it up if I’m not going to be heard?
Girls learn to downplay their certainty. . . Boys learn to minimize communication of their doubts.
A special case of the Confidence Bias situation is that of the entitled parent or client. While teaching at an independent school, I once overheard a wealthy White parent telling a group of her friends how she had instructed her teenage daughter to “Never take a ‘no’ from a person who’s not authorized to give you a ‘yes.’” I was struck simultaneously by the underlying truth of that advice, by the sheer audacity of it, and by the window into how entitlement can be explicitly taught. On later consideration it dawned on me that her attitude explained the futility I sometimes felt when trying to hold a firm line with a parent at that school - I knew that my “no” would be taken as the impetus to go over my head to find the “yes.” In addition to its gender dimensions, confident communication has class dimensions that I felt as a middle-class educator of affluent children.
Expanding our Definitions of Power
It strikes me that all three of these old scripts stem from a domination-based “Power Over” dynamic. They are scripts about climbing a hierarchy or winning an argument. In social justice work, the idea of moving to a relationship-based “Power With” dynamic is common. I’ve tried to enact this myself. But, as Marilyn Hamilton writes in her Integral City blog, “Power With fails to recognize the capacity for hijacking resources that Power Over can too easily manipulate.” Essentially, Power Over is hierarchical and overly firm, and Power With can be idealistic and overly squishy. Hamilton advocates for a consciousness-based “Power As” that can manifest support and encouragement to multiple constituencies, yet also meet dominators with appropriate firmness and truth-telling. It’s a fascinating idea that’s still aspirational for me.
In my search for a sense of Power As, here are three new ways of framing it that resonate with me.
There is power in breaking out of isolation to find coalition.
One of the outcomes of the US high-individualism culture that also values hierarchy is that our gaze is directed to see the power of the individual leader and overlook the power of the group. Cultural norms are acting like a stage magician, practicing sleight of hand so that we believe that the card has appeared by magic. In reality it’s been there in his hand all along with our gaze misdirected. We’re currently living in a time of overlooked groups coalescing to get their messages across in a powerful way. Think of the resurgence of grassroots union organizing, or the #MeToo movement. Individual baristas or warehouse workers are small players in the systems they work for. Together they are powerful - so powerful in fact that corporations spend huge sums to push back against organizing efforts. The same is true for individual women who have spoken out against powerful, high-status men including Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby and many others. In each case women were afraid to speak out until they knew that they wouldn’t be alone. And once the first few had spoken up, many more were willing to join them.
The understanding that people have power in numbers is expressed through norms that keep individuals isolated. It’s a common workplace norm not to compare salaries - even though it’s been illegal for companies to require this since 1935. Whom does this norm serve? Certainly not historically underpaid groups. Isolating each person’s salary information serves those who make the most. Yet, there’s a growing movement for employees to get past their culturally normed embarrassment and share salary information publicly, breaking down the isolation and channeling the energy of the group into a more powerful and unified message. In the case of #MeToo, the even stronger norm of not talking publicly about sexual experiences has been leveraged by perpetrators. Many (including Weinstein, Cosby and even Donald Trump) have been willing to pay “hush money” in return for a non-disclosure agreement, silencing their victims while maintaining their own innocence. They knew that any public statement by an individual victim could snowball into something outside their control, so they worked to keep the women isolated.
If you are feeling embarrassed to speak up about something, consider what role your isolation plays.
It’s important to note that you don’t need to be a member of the less-powerful group to help channel collective energy into something more powerful. Think of the reporters who worked to break the #MeToo story. Sure, they were women as well, but they weren’t carrying the harm of the situation in their bodies, so were more able to do the research that needed to be done to get the story out in a credible way. And whether or not a union is affirmed or a conviction upheld, the point is that awareness has been raised and power awakened, changing the culture itself.
So, if you are feeling embarrassed to speak up about something, consider what role your isolation plays. Who else shares your concerns? Spend some time listening to them. Maybe they want to speak out as a group. Maybe they want you to carry the message. Either way, you’ve taken a brick out of the isolation that supports the hierarchy.
There is power in owning your body wisdom, intuition, and vision.
An alternative to the Analytical Knowledge norm is to give up trying to have all the answers ahead of time. You don’t have to have an elegant logical proof or footnoted critical analysis of the situation. In fact, those can be weaker ways to enter the conversation, because in the Analytical paradigm others can and will critique and reject your ideas. But if you lead with how you feel, that’s yours. Someone might not like it, but they can’t reasonably say that you don’t feel that way. And this goes for emotional feelings (are you outraged, concerned, frustrated?) as well as for physical sensations (are you queasy, tense, exhausted?). All of these come from an intuitive place or a “gut sense” of the situation. I sometimes lead with “my gut is telling me. . ., “ and ask for time for everyone to consider the situation before acting. This buffer of time gives my mind a chance to catch up, so that when we get to the point of debating the merits of various options, I can have some coherent details to add.
Think of your vision for a better world or organization, and sense into your body responses. Do you sense excitement, inspiration, or a grounded calm?
I don’t want to make it sound like body wisdom and intuition are always negative. In addition to that outraged exhaustion or queasy concern, the body can point us to glimpses of inspiring vision. These, too, needn’t be fully fleshed out - in fact it’s more powerful to collaborate on the details of a plan. Think of your vision for a better world or organization, and sense into your body responses. Do you sense excitement, inspiration, or a grounded calm? Can you feel a thrill up the spine, goosebumps, relaxed shoulders? Do you find yourself smiling? All of these are important pieces of information to include because we all experience body empathy - that sense of knowing how someone else’s physical experience could feel in my own body. This is why seeing someone else’s fractured limb is awful - our body feels that loss of integrity and knows it’s just not right. It’s also why we feel uplifted when we watch ballerinas or basketball players hang in the air as they jump - we know on a gut level how free that must feel. Our bodies use kinesthetic imagination to join in, even if we can’t actually accomplish that movement. If you lead with your own inspiration, it’s inspiring. So, try out the power of starting with vision, even if you have to borrow some or reach back to find it, and don’t forget to describe the physical feelings of it: “I feel so inspired by this company’s mission, I actually had goosebumps when I got the job offer. Now I’m queasy about x, and I’m feeling concerned about y.”
Power is something that flows from purpose, not an instrument that you wield for status.
There is nothing more powerful than a person standing in their purpose with complete conviction. Think of the iconic photo of the "Tank Man" from the Tiananmen Square uprising, or of Ieshia Evans facing down riot police in Baton Rouge or any of numerous others collected in this photo essay. The fact that these photos are the ones that go viral and become iconic speaks to our understanding of this on a deep level. Power does not equal force.
Tank Man, Tienanmen Square, Beijing, 1989. Photo credit Jeff Widener, AP
As Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller writes in New Stories of Love, Power and Purpose, “Power is our drive to do this work, to self-realize our soul potential, with increasing intensity and extensity – to become ever more of who we truly are.” In case the term “extensity” is new to you as it was to me, it means “having a quality of extension.” So again, this is not about intense soul searching in isolation. Our personal power comes from extending and expanding acts of being our full selves. Telling more truth. Being more solid.
In my own experience, this kind of purposeful power is something that flows, not something I wield. I’ve known people who were skilled at the wielding approach, and for a long time I was in awe of them. I’ll never forget a Black woman teacher-mentor of mine who calmly said to a wheedling student, “I’ve given you my answer. You have three choices of what to say: ‘Yes, ma’am,’ ‘No, ma’am,’ or ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Now, what is it going to be?” She said it with such conviction and it completely worked for her. But, when I tried to wield power in a similar way, it never worked for me. The words came out but I had trouble embodying them. It felt a little phony, and my students immediately knew it wasn’t sincere.
But in the moments when I have felt powerful, I’ve felt aligned with something different - my purpose or highest potential or best self. When I can touch that I feel grounded, and the right thing to do or words to say seem to flow out of me. As my friend and colleague, Leidene King has put it, “If something was about to fall on a child, you would know what to do and you’d do it without thinking.” This is a great example of intensity and extensity of power. There’s an intense, immediate need. We instinctively tap our common humanity and our basic need to continue the species, regardless of whose child is in danger. Our own ego and drive for self-advancement take a back seat so that we can extend our actions beyond ourselves.
What is the thing that won’t get said if I don’t say it? What is the action I know how to do? What is the piece of the future that is asking for my help to be born?
In everyday life, things may not be as intense and dramatic. So how can we stay in touch with our power? How can we stay aligned with our field of purpose and possibility to let it flow out of us? Part of this has to do with sensing into the social dynamics of situations and realizing that someone else is disempowered. This is important because it’s been shown that when women negotiate on behalf of others at work they are much more effective than when they negotiate for their own salaries. If we connect this with our sense of purpose around fairness, justice, or specifically antiracism, we can find that grounded feeling that allows us to consider the next step: What is the thing that won’t get said if I don’t say it? What is the action I know how to do? What is the piece of the future that is asking for my help to be born? Even if it’s a tiny piece, aligning with this potential can help get me out of inaction and powerlessness.
Paying attention to the social dynamics also helps us distinguish between situations where our colleagues are more or less resourced. Take my teacher-mentor - she manifested plenty of power with her students, but not necessarily as much when faced with our boss. It was easy for me as a young teacher, who struggled at first to exert authority over my students, to assume that she was somehow just more powerful than I was. Now I understand that there’s a complex history of Black women taking charge of other people’s children that hasn't usually translated to power in the work world.
Responding to the Call-On
As you’ll recall, a call-on holds up a person’s best qualities and asks them to reflect on the gap between them and a marginalizing behavior they’ve demonstrated. In my case, the question was, why can’t I use the power that I do have? My current answer is, it’s a process, but more and more I am stepping into my power by connecting it with my purpose.
“We cannot change systems while holding on to unconscious patterns that drive us. A true alternative can only work if we shift the story of and our relationships with power." - Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller
As Christiane Seuhs-Schoeller puts it, “We cannot change systems while holding on to unconscious patterns that drive us. A true alternative can only work if we shift the story of and our relationships with power.“ Realizing that my acquiescing to old, unhealthy scripts about power is a way that I unconsciously support the status quo has motivated me to dig into the stories of power I absorbed as a child. Now I’m working on finding new stories that allow me to own the power I have and allow it to flow.
One Last Old Story: Shame
Once I began to realize I had power I couldn't help but notice how I had neglected my relationship with it. And from that realization I noticed some guilt and shame knocking at my consciousness. Guilt is a feeling that signals I've not lived into my best self, and that can be an important motivator for change. Guilt is something I've learned to listen to as a tool for growth. Shame, on the other hand, accumulates and tells me that I am unworthy at my core. For me, the only thing this motivates is to stay in bed with the covers pulled up over my head. It's de-motivating and disempowering.
This in itself is amplified by the gender norms about confidence. In this eye-opening video from The Atlantic, journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman discuss how gender norms predispose women to ruminate on our perceived shortcomings, but encourage men to let them roll off their backs, get up and try again.
So, if you become aware of ruminating on guilt or some other feeling that's holding you back, see if you can let it go. If you need some help getting past it, book a consultation with me. No sense in staying isolated!