Power: Acceptance and Resistance (Activity/Journal #2)

I have chosen to divide the relationships I have into three groups: my immediate family, extended family, and friends. My immediate family consists of our household - my mom, dad, and two siblings. On the other hand, my extended family consists of my grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews - coming both from my mother's and father's side - and my godchildren.

Even though my mom, dad, and brother may have been older and possess authority over me, I still do not accept them completely and resist at times, if needed. I believe that age nor capacity does not give people the option to rule completely over others. I believe that I have the right to voice out my sentiments especially whenever I feel deprived of my needs and the right to resist their power if I think it is too much already. On the other hand, I can say that my sister and I go both ways in the sense that we accept and/or resist power if needed.

In my extended family, my grandparents and uncles have power over me; I firmly accept this fact. This is due to the reason that I have very high respects for my grandparents. I believe that my uncles have already gone through a lot in life so they just want to protect me. Moving on, I have complete power over my nieces, nephew, and godchildren since I can say that as of now, I am more experienced than them so I do know whether something is right or wrong for them.

As for all of my friends, I believe that we do have partial power over each other and no one is more powerful than the other. I believe that we are here to guide each other in our journey and part of it is to experience exercising power over the other and/or/while having power exercised over you.

Access, Control, and Positionality Assessment Profile (Activity/Journal #1)

Resource Access and Control Profile

My father and brother are the ones who work for our family; hence, the only productive resources we have is the office of the company they are both working for. In terms of the reproductive resources, since my father and brother work abroad, they have basically lost their access and/or control over such. In general, my mother, sister, and I have control over our reproductive resources in our home, excluding only the laptops - which belong to my sister and I separately - with which my mother only has access to and not control over.

Decision-making Access and Control Profile

With regard to productive activities, my father and brother are basically the ones who have the control. However, when it comes to the question of where the money should be invested, my mother has access since she has a share on the money earned by both my father and brother. As per the issues related to reproductive activities, we all basically have the control over them individually except for just some. Since it is only my sister and I who are still studying, we are the ones who have the complete control over the school to enroll in and the course to take. Also, only access to which things should be spent for is granted to my sister since she does not have her own money (allowance). All members of the family have control over all community-management issues present.

Benefits and Burdens Process and Control Profile

All of us in the family basically have the control over the benefits that each one of us receive. However, my mother, sister, and I only have access to money-related benefits since do not earn for the family. My parents and brother shoulder the burden of having to pay various services. However, when it comes to the payment of bills, my mother solely remains to be of control over them since she is the one who receives the money coming from my father and brother as it is sent here in the country. On the other hand, my mother, sister, and I are the ones who shoulder the burden of having to attend to chores and errands.

Positionality Assessment Profile

I am primarily in control over some if not all aspects of my identity as of the moment; hence, I am very content with my life right now. However, I also come to realize that this too much freedom granted upon me could be dangerous to handle too since it gives me the power to do whatever I want with my life - no limits, no boundaries.