"It's hard to know what authentic power is; we've had so few examples of it. For so long power has been a matter of control and dominion, the thing that keeps people up and others down, the blood that feeds the hierarchy.
The kind of power women need is not ruthless, controlling, self-serving, dominion-seeking power - power without benefit of love. It is not staying up by keeping others down. What we need is a potent, forceful power, yes, but one that is also compassionate, that enables others as well.
'The true representation of power is not a big man beating a small man or woman,' Carolyn Heilbrun writes. Nor is it a woman beating up on a man or finding a place in the hierarchy and mimicking the old patriarchal ways on entitlement, control, and command. Rather, Heilbrun says, power is 'the ability to take one's place in whatever discourse is essential to action and the right to have one's part matter'."
Sue Monk Kidd (2002) The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Harper, San Francisco, p.199
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