Gender and Power: Affirmative Sexual Consent

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The gendered reality of power demonstrates that the current environment hosts danger for people in the form of sexual violence. The study of Ngidi et al. (2021) emphasized that adolescents who seek male approval fall to the muted position of submissiveness in front of male dominance and, by extension, sexual abuse. Violence is used to instill fear and submissiveness in their patriarchal township community (Ngidi et al., 2021). Among the stories analyzed by the researchers, a woman that “communicated her discomfort to being fondled, was physically assaulted and raped” (Ngidi et al., 2021, p. 6). This demonstrates that male power holds a dominant position in the social hierarchy, and rejection of this social structure may trigger responses to force others into submissiveness hence resulting in the occurrence of rape. The study argued that people think about and react to actions like sexual abuse as a kind of punishment, a technique to exert control over minors, and a demonstration of authority (Ngidi et al., 2021). Consequently, revealing the severity of some societies’ perception of hegemonic power distribution across gender roles.

Even though contemporary reality attempts to address this power inequality in a sexual relationship via strengthening consent as a preventive measure, the nature of social hierarchy continues to enforce gendered inequality. The research of Metz et al. (2021) analyzed college students’ notions of consent and identified that they tended to support rather than disrupt hegemonic power structures. The males in this research acted in ways that looked congruent with feminist conceptualizations of bodily autonomy and affirmative consent, even when they did so to defend their personal interests (Metz et al., 2021). Men’s sexual entitlement was emphasized as an intermediary in the process of gaining women’s permission (Metz et al., 2021). Thus, the study emphasizes that the nature of current consensual relationships continues to strengthen the gendered nature of power in society.