A BOY: "Power - it's when you possess, it's mine, my own."
A GIRL: "Power is a power over people, they want something,
but they must do something else, they does not want to."
From responces of the Russian sixth year pupils.
A higly prononced gender oriented specifity assosiated with social
and legal terms are observed among the Russian boys and girls. The image
of power as something huge compared to which a human being sees oneself
very small and paltry is common for the overwhelming majority of the Russian
respondents. In the associations of girls this image seems to be the most
clear cut: "power over weak ones", "authority of the
ruling clique over the petty population". Though such ideas are
detected among the French also it used to be related to non-actual forms
of state power. What is the most important, from our point of viw, this
image includes an idea of abuse of power as well, expressed in the most
clear way by seniour schoolgirls ("if power is not limited it turns
to be a destructive force", "overdosed power is dangerous".)
It gives the impression that those elements of power that are probable
(and dangerous) for the French teenagers are inherent for the very idea
of power for their Russian counterparts, moreover is an essential element
of power ("tyranny, despotism, it is inevitable under any power").
But this idea common for boys and girls has its gender oriented specifity
of their own. For girls power is first of all a force manipulating people,
making them do something opposite their wishes, demanding obedience and
obtaining it. This image practically remains the same irrespective of age,
just successively developing idea about almighty of power is being added
in the process of growing up. In the same time an idea of power as a political
institution even is breaking up. Increasing "monstrousness" of
the image of power does not cause, as one could imagine, unambiguously
increasing of negative ratings. It is the youngest girls whose attitude
towards power is the most critical. While growing up boys and girls began
to make attempts to rationalise power somehow, to determine conditions
when it may be a benefit for rulers as well as subjects to them. Several
notions corresponding to this evolution can be marked out:
a) power as freedom, success, priviledges/rights. This image is the
most popular among the eightth class boys, but then is loosing its strenghth.
As far as girls are concerned this image is developed most actively among
the seniour schoolgirls: "if people obey you you are a success
in the society", "power gives advantage over others", "bending
people to one's own will is freedom".
b) power as a possibility of good deeds making: "a possibility
of changing something", "a force by which one can help people",
"...a human being ruling over people should take care over them".
c) power as a source of corrupting of those who execute power: "...abusing
power one might degradate drastically". In this example one can
see clearly a difference of contexts of that anxiety about the problem
of abusing of power expressed by some Russian and French schoolgirls. The
formers are anxious about the moral image of a ruler, while the latters
are anxious about wellbeing of their subjects.
Realizing of seductivness of power as freedom as well as understanding
of power as a tyranny of force lead to an implicit "appeal" to
a rooler to be conscious and responsible, to meet moral criteria of estimating
of his own actions, that bears some resemlance to the image of "a
sweet lord" or "good parents". Only in one responce we can
find a clear and impersonal statement that "power should limit
oneself", and in another one - an attempt to reconcile the image
of power as permissiveness and apprehension of necessity to limit power:
"a possibility of doing everything you want, but within the bounds
of law."
Responces of the Russian boys and girls show some difference in putting
accents. From the very beginning they are not inclined to emphasize submission
or vassalage of subjects of power. Competetive but partially coordinated
images of power as a force, might and domination, from the one hand, and
as a political and state authority, from the other, remains to be leading
in any age group. An idea of power as "an unlimited rooling"
is more alien and disapproving among boys than girls. The scatter is from
as rough as "power - to rich skunks and sonsuvabitch", "the
president has power over fools" (meaning by the way that a clever
fellow would not allow somebody to have power over him) up to a little
bit more concrete statements ("thieving") and complete
rejecting ("power has no right to exist at all", "any
power is a tyranny"). But majority of young men is rather ambivalent
about power. It attracts them and antagonizes as well.
Responces of boys in comparison with those of girls indicate that they
don't just recognize the priviledges given by power but are eager for power
as well. They admire it and identify themselves with it ("it's
a score!", "you got everything: connections, force, might",
"It's something more, it's more mightful then money"). As
if in addition to the image of power "over fools" we find also
an image of clever people of power, "who are obliged to think upon
(not "about" - M.A.) millions of people". Speaking of
power boys use 1st and 2nd person singular much more frequently than girls
as if they were men set in power themselves.
Image of power as a tyranny is defined by youths more exactly in relation
to law and right. In some responces they clearly declare that the both
of them - law as well as right - are not "above" but "under"
power, which represents:
"a group of people who fabricate silly laws" (a sixth
class pupil),
"bosses being in command of all the laws and rights of citizens
on the basis of domination" (a tenth class pupil),
"a possibility of having people in their subordination. A possibility
to do anything, by legally or illegally" (an eleventh class pupil).
Unlike girls boys don't "beg" authorities to observe the
rules of propriety, but "grope" for paths into power. Just slightest
tracks of gender differentiation of the same "vector" can be
found among the French in comparison with the Russians. Young French girls
are not inclined to identify power and force at all, on the contrary the
Russian girls are leaders in this respect. A general concept "force,
might, influence" disguises the fact that the Russian respondents
speak mainly about force and power/might, the French, unlike the Russians,
prefer to speak about influence, power/domination. This influence or domination
is not accidental, but is determined by some social mechanism reflected
in mind of teenagers in the form of ideas about role of money and, first
of all, in the idea of social stairs...This image is very similar to the
idea of social and political structure, it reflects something more then
just an opposition "authorities - subjects". Besides the idea
of hierarchy as stairs itself as if contains a possibility of lifting,
implies an absence of a gap between authorities and their subjects. Girls
mostly associate with power political and state institutions and, unlike
the Russian girls of the same age, are absolutely disinclined to underline
dependance, submitability of subjects of power and unlike boys they are
not inclined to mention manipulative aspect of power, its demand of submission.
On the contrary girls, not boys, especially in the process of maturation,
used to speak about power as a political mechanism of rooling, power as
a social function.
Even among the youngest French schoolboys one can find quite distinct
image of democratic regulation of power as a sort of power of subjects
of power: "a power to vote, to have a right of a vote".
While growing up the idea of responsibility of power, need of its limitation
and a possibility to abuse power become more and more explicit...It is
the French girls who are more critical towards power. It correlates with
their higher level of politicization. Here lays the main difference between
"gender profile" of the French respondents and "gender profile"
of the Russians..
Like the Russian children the French try to determine the correlation
of law and power. In every age groups girls are anxious about it a little
bit more. The question concealed behind the statements of children might
sound as something like this: Does power own law (and to what extent?)
or law runs power (and how?). The difference between the Russian and the
French respondents seems to lie in the fact that the majority of the former
ones does not doubt about their responses while the latters search them.
Law for the French - to a greater extent for boys than for girls -
often represents a special social institution which make possible to reconsile
freedom and power and establish a compromise between them.
It is much less evident than in the case of "power", but
gender oriented difference vector in the French and the Russian sample
is again partially opposite. Those groups which expressed more critical
attitude towards power, namely, the Russian boys and the French girls,
make more emphasis on the rights of individual. May be both of them are
more active in their attempts to approach "power" using their
own rights.