Writing Feedback / Power Privilege essay [8]

Thanks for the replies I really appreciate it. As this is my first academic essay Im finding it quite a struggle ive got up to 500 words can you check this see how Im going.

Thanks.

POWER, PRIVILEGE AND DIFFERNCE

For the purpose of this essay I am going to begin by defining "power", I will reflect upon my own experiences of power. Power and powerlessness go together, therefore; one who gains power causes another to lose it. In our society there will always be inequalities which can either be on a personal or structural level. To understand the meaning of power we have to understand the distribution of power and privilege in our society. This can be done by looking at the different social divisions and class structure within today's society.

One of the most important types of power is structural as it can bring about social changes. Jan Fook who is a social worker and an author of many social work books, acknowledged that there are some implications about power in relation to gender but on the other hand, power can be misused between genders. Jan Fook (2008)

One of my own experiences of power was when I was working as an informal care worker for a member of my family. I noticed that this job was very female dominated probably because it is assumed that caring comes naturally to women. It is also lowly paid. Because most of my work was informal I wasn't allowed to any entitlements or basic rights such as paid maternity leave leaving me quite powerless.

Fook (2008) wrote, if empowerment is about giving power to powerless groups, then we first have to identify the powerless groups or people to ensure that they have the power to carry on with their tasks. A lot of the times people mistake empowerment for reducing their inequalities. However, empowerment is actually about all groups being the same, but for some people being the same as others could actually be disempowering them. The most important thing about power is how it is practised by different people which can be a good or a bad thing. (Healy, 2000:45) states that a 'bottom up' view of power encourages looking at how power is expressed in the richness of everyday reactions.

Every person despite their social status has the potential to exercise some form of power. In our society today men are seen as being the more dominant figure. Through research for this essay I didn't actually realise how many more privileges they do have over women in our society, such as not having to change their name through marriage or being expected to bear children. Robinson (2003) wrote that the major feature of the social status of men and women is the dominance of men in virtually every aspect of modern life.