Using network data from 40 groups, we examine the effect of social context on the gendering of power relations. By modeling reported data on power relations as the result of a stochastic response process that may be gendered, we examine how this gendering is related to group-level contextual factors. We find that much of what appears to be a gendering of the way in which power relations are perceived, namely that women tend to stress equality in relationships more strongly than men, is actually due to their structural position, although women increase their propensity to stress equality when the balance of power between the genders is structurally anomalous.
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