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Power is the physical and mental control someone or something has over another person or a group of people. I am afraid that if I plagiarize on my essay, I might be penalized or suspended. That is the power of fear. Power has the ability to impact the behavior of people. Contrary to what people believe, power does not necessarily involve the use of force, or threats. As important as analyzing power is, there is no way to really comprehend power. Power is too diverse and controversial. Power in our society is very unstable, causing gender inequality, racism and numerous other social problems. Let us take for example, gender inequality. We cannot explain gender inequality if we do not understand power first. Power does not result in gender inequality or racism, it builds them. Thinking about or fixing power imbalances will solve a lot of problems in the social world, and for that sole reason, it is worth thinking about power to understand society. In the reading, “Woman as other” by Simone de Beauvoir, we see how power is used to enhance gender inequality. Simone de Beauvoir’s central thesis in this piece is that men subjected women through hardship, by exercising unjust use of their authority by referring to them as the ‘Other’. Women were called “the sex” and were essential to man only for sexual purposes. Women were defined only in relation to man. They were seen as inessential, not essential. To this very day, married women have to change their initials from ‘Ms.’ to ‘Mrs.’ And change their surnames to their husbands last name, while men are referred to as ‘Mr.’ regardless of whether they are married or not. According to Beauvoir, man is ‘absolute’ and woman is the ‘other’, because “Man can think of himself without woman. She c... ... middle of paper ... ...ares Gandhi's Satyagraha to be similar to how Jesus would react towards nonviolence. He assumed that the ethics of Jesus were only effective in individual relationships (264). Gandhi preached about nonviolence and how we should not engage in violent behavior, no matter the issue. King,Jr felt like those claims were invalid until he read about Gandhi and immediately realized how wrong he was. He believed that Gandhi was the first individual in history to use the love ethics of Jesus on a larger scale. In the, "Negro Problem" article, Gunner states that the only way to resolve the problem was to better the conditions of the blacks. However, King, Jr stated that if the American Negro and other victims of oppression succumb to the temptation of using violence in the struggle for freedom, future generations will be the recipients of a desolate night of bitterness (265).

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