Drawing on feminist theories of women's oppression and on social theories of power, this text attempts to develop an analysis of the relationship between gender and power and shows how theories of power can contribute to the analysis of gender relations in specific historical and social contexts.

Drawing on feminist theories of women's oppression and on social theories of power, this book offers original analyses of the relationship between gender and power.

The Gender of Power presents a critique of feminist theories of power as simply top-down models of the oppression of women. The authors argue that this notion presents women as passive victims and ignores the diversity and complexity of women's experiences. The ideas on power of Bourdieu, Giddens, Lukes and Foucault are also evaluated in terms of their usefulness in explaining relations between men and women, which can often be covert, consensual and intimate.