Even feminists are fond of pointing out the existence of the male power fantasy. You can see it pretty much everywhere, although the first thing that comes to mind for me is super heroes in comic books. What strikes me as off about this concept is that, from a psychological standpoint, I'm pretty sure a fantasy is intended to fulfill a certain need.

However, the common rhetoric of feminism is that men have more power than women; that we live in a patriarchal society in which men have control. While I wouldn't deny that men do tend to hold more powerful positions currently, the argument has been made and can yet again be made that this has more to do with personal choices than it has to do with their actual position in our society.

If we look at some of the other things that people typically fantasize about, they all have to do with a desirable outcome. Whether it be a scientist dreaming of a cure for cancer, a woman dreaming of a hot guy, or a man dreaming of starting a family (see what I did there?), fantasies are all about what we do not currently have and what we desire to have in the future.

If men currently have more power than women, why are men supposedly (according to feminists themselves) more likely to fantasize about being powerful? Does it have everything to do with the subtle intricacies of a patriarchal society which tells men that they have to be one thing and women that they have to be something else?

Well, I don't know if it's fair to call it patriarchal, but it is fair to state that we live in a society where we are frequently fed a certain message about who we should be. For instance, just walking down the toy aisles of a Wal-mart or Target store can reveal the subtle nuances of what toys tell us about our gender from an early age: men are supposed to be strong, show no emotion, build and destroy; women are supposed to create, start families and never do anything violent.

Ultimately, whether or not this actually tells us something and forms who we will become on a subconscious level is up for debate. Either you agree with it or you think it's ridiculous, but whatever your thoughts are, this type of imagery would tend to suggest that from a young age boys are taught to fantasize about having power. Whether that is to maintain a previously existing power structure or to give boys a coping mechanism for their lack of power is yet again a subject worthy of debate.

I'm mostly curious about what it says that a lot of men do fantasize about having power. I don't think this is true for all men, but I think it is fair to say that a lot of men do have these fantasies. If fantasizing is all about imagining that you have something which you do not have, at what point does it cease to be a manufactured fantasy and become a fantasy based on the reality of your situation?

Perhaps boys fantasize about having power because they are young and not in power, but then why do grown men fantasize about the same thing if they supposedly have that power? Perhaps just as important, do women fantasize about power as much as men typically do? If not, why not?

I'd love to hear the community's thoughts on this subject. It just randomly came to mind today, and I think it's a topic worth discussing. Hopefully someone agrees with me!