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Women and power: understanding power
What can we learn from historical examples?
Young samurai discovered ways of knowing their bodies’ strengths through their sensei or master, who explained how his sensei struck a particular pose, and his sensei before that. Today, our knowledge of power is limited to what some woman high-flyer scored in a business skirmish. This is a thin view of success: the facts and circumstances of comeuppance and anger, not the strategies and tactics of triumph. It is a view of success based on decades of defeat and compromise. Worse, it is based on rules of battle that ensure our defeat and self-resignation.
The cardinal law of power
Aspects of yourself that you think of as contradictory or as opposites are winning partners in war. Weakness comes from believing that you can’t be both a lover and a fighter. Great warriors understand that ‘fierce’ is the ally of ‘loving’, ‘confrontation’ is the ally of ‘peace’, ‘bravery’ is the ally of ‘vulnerability’. Princess Diana was often described by those who knew her as a mixture of humility and arrogance, suffering and domination. She gave off a feeling of having been wounded and of being all-powerful. That was the source of her commanding strength.
Combining opposites in behaviour and style throws your opponent off guard, introduces surprise and mystery – women’s great advantages. Here’s the cardinal law of power:
Never get outraged. Get outrageous.
Do the unexpected. You will confuse your opponents and achieve power. Even the smallest gestures have tremendous impact.
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