Power Imbalances and the Equation of Power
Image: Caravaggio, Judith Beheading Holofernes, ca. 1598–99. Photo via Wikimedia Commons
Over the years, a considerable amount of literature has discussed the impact of Feminism on culture and the current decline of men in various aspects of life, such as education, society, and finance. Even that it is “The End of Men.”
Some authors like Jonathan Haidt and Rob Henderson have delved into the statistics on male and female participation in society, providing fascinating insights.
However, many men are interested in understanding how these changes affect their individual relationships with women.
They want to know what has changed at the ground level between them and the women they love. While the cultural effects are important, they are more interested in how things work differently now with their one-on-one interactions with women than they did in the past.
The private world that they share with their partner is of more interest than the broader cultural mechanics. Despite not knowing the specifics of what is happening in their personal relationships, it is evident that men's and women's public discussions suggest that there are significant changes.
We may have no idea what’s happening in this private world we two inhabit—but if there’s any indication in all that tends to be said about men and women, publicly and between men and women, privately—common sense says it has everything to do with power.
The sharing of power and the balance of power.
In Principles of Social Psychology, Chapter 6: Influencing and Conforming, the authors explore the concepts of authority and power. They define social power:
“One of the fundamental aspects of social interaction is that some individuals have more influence than others. Social power can be defined as the ability of a person to create conformity even when the people being influenced may attempt to resist those changes.”
While power and authority are closely related, some argue that authority requires ongoing legitimacy through influence in the eyes of others. These ideas are especially relevant for individuals in challenging relationships who may feel coerced into certain behaviors, which can be considered abusive.
There is much in the media of late about how males don’t tend to report domestic abuse, and yet when they do, it is downplayed as per the gamma bias phenomenon.
Those who are told what to do, think, or say under threat of divorce, financial or reputational ruin ought to stop in their tracks to think about power, its relationship to authority, and the dependency of authority on the person’s influence on you and the legitimacy of their authority in your eyes.
Many studies explore power, authority, responsibility, and legitimacy in the corporate world. Still, when it comes to intimate relationships, we might take pause to wonder if the rules are somewhat different here.
One crucial aspect of the difference is that corporate power has necessary hierarchies for task assignment and completion.
In contrast, no person in their right mind would enter a lasting intimate relationship without the expectation of interpersonal equality and fairness.
Suppose you are a man in such a relationship. In that case, you might want to consider whether there is a vast divergence from the near fifty-fifty power-sharing you and a partner silently agreed to when you started a relationship.
If too great for the relationship to be called a legitimate “partnership,” consider that you are perhaps unwittingly letting yourself be too influenced by this person.
If you could snap yourself out of the spell, you might find their power illegitimate.
For those who could never find the words to describe this uncomfortable spot to be stuck in, there is a simple equation to keep your head on straight.
From physics, we learn that power is defined as the “amount of work done per unit time.”
This is a very interesting thing if we seek to define the psychological balance of power in intimate relationships that differs from the broader, public sociological definition above.
The problematic variable here is the dependency of authority on “influence, “which is not the same thing as “work” if we were to do like Freud and seek analogies to physics as a gold standard of metaphoric comparison of the invisible psychological world to the measurable, predictable physical world.
Influence, authority and legitimacy might give you the same associations I get, which are of vloggers and social media “influencers” hawking products and seeking “likes” and “fans.”
None of us have an intimate, romantic relationship with these public influencers, as their attempted connection to us is one pertaining to commerce and their personal branding, not romantic partnership.
Could it be that in more recent years, the culture of social media has also bled into personal romances in the same way that Feminism has done for decades?
From the perspective of a social media influencer, power, and authority tend to be thought of in the form of:
Authority = Power, and Power = Authority
If you have one of them, you automatically have the other so long as you maintain the "legitimate influence" over others to respect you.
Something about this doesn’t sound psychologically sound, honorable, intimate, honest, authentic, or in good faith, and I know why.
It sounds like the techniques of a salesman at a used car lot.
What may be bothersome to male ears is referenced in prior articles I’ve written about the high value that males place on honor.
Our definition of honor: Lasting value in the generous conduct, actions, and good deeds rendered in the past.
In the area of intimate relationships, a contrarian response to this psychological trait so valued by males leaves me only able to think of a song title by Janet Jackson: What Have You Done for Me Lately?
These words that authority depends on, sound like false constructs as opposed to mature character or work.
Authority seems to fall flat as a synonym for power because it can be propped up by clever assertions of one's value in a relationship rather than earned merit, personal investment, and work.
Here, there is something else to notice about men finding themselves in a significant imbalance of power in a romantic relationship.
“When a male is in a power imbalance, at least two masculine instincts are disempowered […] the Zeus Instinct—the masculine instinct that contains authority, responsibility, and leadership but is also the “provisioner/provider” instinct in males [and] the Hephaestus instinct—the masculine instinct that contains responsibility, effort, generosity, and values ‘work’ highly”
As a writer, I've taken great pains to assert to the public that masculine instincts exist. With a tip of the hat to Carl Jung, I believe specific, repeatable, reliable nuances of male behavior are very closely related to the detailed stories of the ancient Greek gods.
When a male is in a power imbalance, at least two masculine instincts are disempowered, diminished in passion (shamed, in other words), and blocked from expression, generative contribution to the woman, the relationship, and growth of the male on his life path.
One of these is the Zeus Instinct—the masculine instinct that contains authority, responsibility, and leadership but is also the “provisioner/provider” instinct in males.
The other of note in power imbalances is the Hephaestus instinct—the masculine instinct that contains responsibility, effort, generosity, and values “work” highly (since he is the provider of tools, technology, weapons, implements, and devices of all kinds to the other gods and goddesses.) The driving force in him is similar to the term, “blue-collar work ethic” and the phrase “Pride in a job well-done.”
The nature of the Hephaestus Instinct also demands this expression of Honor from others—appreciation of the lasting value of both his craftsmanship and his generous contributions to others of the fruits of his labors in the forge, at the center of the Earth.
I think this is the root aspect of where couples go wrong, in the cases where the male has abdicated power-sharing in a relationship that has gone out of balance.
Whether he unconsciously does so by way of being intimidated by Feminism, or by the inauthentic marketing mindset of social media, or by the dark turn in the depiction of and valuation of males in today’s culture and media, abdicating his power leads to a depletion of the passion and drive these two instincts could have otherwise been used for to pitch in to the duties and needs of the relationship.
The male at some point, checks out of the relationship when this happens.
Back to the legitimate world of physics, where Power = Work over a unit Time.
Now consider the investment of both material and personal resources and their relationship to doing work to obtain those resources. For the male, this should be governed by the Hephaestus Instinct.
Harmony in the relationship instead arises from allowing both partners the dignity to seize authority over their personal resources and the fruits of their labors in using them.
Both monetary and personal resources are aspects of our sense of dignity.
As we look at money as a major source of fighting between intimates, we might take note of the confusion that can arise between the two types of resources leading to inadvertently cutting down the other's sense of dignity.
What if there was a simple tool for clearing up the vast number of conflicts between partners over authority, legitimacy, responsibility, earned resources, and accountability?
Together, these all factor into what we would all call “the balance of power” in relationships and friendships.
The tool we need is an “equation of power” that is also a "mathematical identity" equation.
The "Equation of Power Balance"
Julia Romanenkova writes in Railsware:
Authority is the power delegated by senior executives to assign duties to all employees for better functioning. Responsibility is the commitment to fulfill a task given by an executive. Accountability makes a person answerable for his or her work based on their position, strength, and skills.
Authority assumes responsibility, and responsibility necessarily must carry authority to get tasks completed successfully.
“If you wield one hundred percent of the authority over a task, you get one hundred percent of the responsibility to complete it. If you are given one hundred percent of the responsibility over a task, you inherently own one hundred percent of the authority over it.”
In the corporate world, authority is delegated to those responsible for an outcome, but in a relationship of equals, the authority is inherent in the equal partner who is taking on a responsibility.
This means that Responsibility = Authority and Authority = Responsibility in romantic relationships.
They are equivalent.
Men in a power imbalance need to memorize this one concept below and the definition of honor as “good deeds, work and investment of the past continuing to retain value today.” Then they may think about and negotiate the work tasks of their relationship:
If you wield one hundred percent of the authority over a task, you get one hundred percent of the responsibility to complete it. If you are given one hundred percent of the responsibility over a task, you inherently own one hundred percent of the authority over it.
There is no agreement in a romantic relationship, marriage, or friendship where one person is an executive employing a “subordinate.” In these intimate relationships of partners or friends, they came to the relationship in the first place as equals.
Psychological Currency Exchange
Even if it were possible to know every detail of the labor, time, energy, and money each partner or friend contributes to the relationship, it might not be physically possible to share every thought or action each partner has expended for the benefit of the relationship or family.
For example, one partner may say, “I pay the entire mortgage every month. Can’t you take care of all the kids’ medical appointments?”
Another might say, “You don’t even know what it’s like to clean an entire house daily amid constant noise and screaming, then find it just as dirty and messy again within hours. There’s no monetary amount that you can place on that!”
To which the more financially resourced partner might say, “Well, how much is that worth? The $10,000 I spend on the family every month? The $120,000 I spend every year? This is the most expensive housecleaning and childcare I have ever heard of!”
There is no happy end to this argument since, in no small part, there is no financial equivalent in the personal resources spent by one partner when lined up against the monetary resources of the other.
In trying to take their subjective perspective on what tasks and responsibilities are worth, no one came to the marriage or friendship in the first place looking to be a boss or subordinate, nor did they do so to “buy” companionship or friendship.
It would seem that the real “Equation of Power Balance” is:
Responsibility (Authority) + Resources = Power
…where responsibility and authority are the same things: equal and intertwined.
Willingness to take on responsibility and the authority inherent when you do are major factors of efficiency in getting tasks done. These are like the “per unit time” of the physics equation.
Authority, Responsibility, and the resultant generosity as a provisioner/provider is the Zeus Instinct in the male come back to life. It is the “per unit time” of the physics equation of power.
The devotion, honor and continuous effort of some men in trying to make an income to support their families may ring true for many men reading this. If they don’t feel valued for it, the power imbalance in their relationship may be the cause, and specifically the disempowerment of their Hephaestus Instinct.
No wonder the natural course further for them will feel more laborious with less to show for, until the man collapsed, exhausted, and the relationship soon ends along with his value in the woman’s eyes and the shame he feels at the loss of honor for his work that he instinctually feels he is owed, and is owed in reality.
The resources spent, grown through great pains and labor, then personally crafted with attention to the unique needs and utility of the partner, he gifts the woman the fruits of his labors. This is the Hephaestus instinct in the male come back to life. It represents the “work” of the physics definition of power.
Using Responsibility = Authority Responsibly
Trying to devise methods of tabulating joint resource value can be fruitless—the percent split of the complex responsibilities (overall house, child, or financial management.)
Instead, try using this principle on small tasks that require one hundred percent responsibility of one partner at a time, where that partner may assume one hundred percent authority over the task's "why, when, and how."
Slowly, the male can replenish his Hephaestus Instinct with the privacy to add his personal style and craftsmanship to the tasks useful to the family.
He will replenish his Zeus Instinct by laying claim to all authority over the specific tasks that only he can or will do.
You may say “How are these principles useful to the woman?”
I once heard the phrase, “All the cathedrals of Europe were built for a woman.”
This means that even the noblest aspirations they bring to completion tend to be to impress women, benefit women, be generative and generous to women, their offspring, and perhaps, if he is lucky, to find one who sees and hears the Zeus and Hephaestus in him, and honors them.
She’s the one, among all the world, he wants to love, honor, and be with for life.
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Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, legal advice, or other professional opinion. Never disregard such advice because of this article or anything else you have read from the Centre for Male Psychology. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of, or are endorsed by, The Centre for Male Psychology, and we cannot be held responsible for these views. Read our full disclaimer here.
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