Power Imbalance Quotes

“My sister only has one side of the story but she is sure that she knows the whole story because that is how the dysfunctional system works. We don’t question everyone or even consider that there may be another side to the story but instead automatically believe the one who has the most power in the relationship.”
― Darlene Ouimet

“He can do anything he likes and I'm so lonely, oh so lonely— And I put up with it because there was nothing else to do—”
― Iris Murdoch, The Black Prince

“On the other hand, she happily kept him informed about plans she had with other people, providing a steady flow of information about excursions that were about to happen, details of dates or parties that were always this close to coming together. As long as he listened, without complaint, to an endless description of activities that were supposed to happen without him, there was a 30 percent chance, at least, that Anna would change her mind at the last minute, claim to be unable to handle the unbearable burden of whatever her social plans were supposed to be, and decide to hang out with him instead. She'd arrive at his house and collapse in exaggerated relief: "I am so glad we're doing this, I was so not in the mood for another party at Maria's." As though they were both equally at the mercy of circumstance, similarly oblivious to the power dynamic that governed their "friendship.”
― Kristen Roupenian, You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“Many doctors (and medical students) display uncertainty about whether or not CFS/ME is real…Patients with CFS/ME often experience suspicion by health professionals…The (often unintentional) marginalization of many CFS/ME patients represents a failure in medical professionalism, one that may lead to further ethical and practical consequences both for progressive research into CFS/ME and for ethical care...

With one exception, doctors attending the seminar were either defensive or silent. In their eyes, the ME patients present were conforming to stereotype (angry, unscientific, unreasonable) and therefore they – the doctors – would not engage with them. Paradoxically, these doctors were themselves conforming to another stereotype, as described by the speaker: ‘Knowledge-formation is also influenced by social and cultural factors. Such encounters have an inherent power differential; there is significant potential…to be unjust from an epistemic point of view.”
― Charotte Blease

“The adult incest survivor is likely to become involved in sexual relationships with older or more powerful people…There is little room for intimacy and much opportunity for abuse and sacrifice…The survivor may continue to be ‘child’, rather than an equal.”
― E. Sue Blume, Secret Survivors: Uncovering Incest and Its Aftereffects in Women

“Did he even exist in her mind, as a living, breathing, thinking person? He spent so much time trying to figure out what she was thinking, but what kind of a consciousness did she imagine lived behind the mask of his face?”
― Kristen Roupenian, You Know You Want This: Cat Person and Other Stories

“If you were to imagine a life where you had very little power, did not have a voice and things happened to you, not with you - what would that feel like?”
― Eleanor Macleod, Relational Depth: New Perspectives and Developments

“The baby was presented to me, to all of us, as a fait accompli, a legal adoption, suggested and agreed upon by the parents, and nobody questioned this, or not out loud. No one asked what “agreement” could even mean in a situation of such deep imbalance.”
― Zadie Smith, Swing Time