The organization grasped the issue soon after, but mistaking powerlessness for power hardly began recently and has hardly gone away. Her: I understand what you’re saying, but we can’t help right now. Me: I thought this was about a source of their powerlessness. Me: Why is that? Her: Our members think this would take away their only source of power. She finally called back, saying they could not help. When I was working in the early 1970s to shape the concept and create the legal claim for sexual harassment when it did not exist, I called the organization then called 9to5 and explained to the woman who answered the phone what I was trying to do, asking if she would be willing to talk with her members about my project on unwanted sexual attention and pressure at work. This contributes to keeping dominance in place. Anxiety about backlash, however well founded, keeps one’s antennae endlessly attuned to giving power what pleases (and please pacifies) it. While often realistic, fear of blowback can impede insistence on change and the collective mobilization it requires. From experience, women often assume that any opposition to power will produce retaliation followed by retrenchment: not only that any progress made will be clawed back, but that those pushing for it will be punished.
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