The Female Definition of Power

Recently, an article posted on CNN ran with the headline, "Female Senators Say They'd Already Have the Fiscal Cliff Solved."

There was near unanimity among the female Senators today that they’d be able to broker a deal faster themselves.  “What I find is with all due deference to our male colleagues,is that women’s styles tend to be more collaborative,” Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, said.

The group of 20 women, the largest group of women in office in the Senate at the same time in history, is redefining power.  I would also say they are representing power the way it is supposed to be expressed.

Power is not the slow, cloddish, clashing of solid objects that thud together and get very little done or changed.  Power is fluid, rapid transmutation.  Look at nature if you don't believe me.  In nature, "the power of nature" manifests when the elements are volatile, rapidly changing.  Think of water rushing through a dam, wind turning the blades of a windmill, the rapid combustion of various forms of fuel to generate power.

When Senator Collins observes that women are more collaborative, she is referring to the innate ability of women to deal with and exemplify power.  In the case of a fiscal cliff, and one would imagine if pushing for legislation on gun control, women working together will find the fastest and most efficient path to completion, which by definition involves collaboration, fluidity, thinking out of the box of one's own rigidly held belief systems.  

A woman's definition of power is not control, domination, clashing.  It is sharing, democratizing and seeking new solutions.

Women in power will usher in a new era in our government.