Four Domains of Power

The four domains of power come from Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Feminist Thought, describing how oppression is organised and managed at four social levels:

1. Structural — large institutions and economic imbalance (laws, education, funding for shelters and women’s health).
2. Disciplinary — organisational practice and bureaucracy (e.g. a justice system where only ~1.3% of UK rape cases charged; “hierarchies of victimhood”).
3. Hegemonic — norms, culture and ideology that legitimise patriarchal oppression (shaming, “honour,” victim-blaming).
4. Interpersonal — direct, visible, day-to-day harm, including both stranger harassment and Intimate Partner Violence.

The Safest Woman Alive adapts the framework to show that most Personal Safety Apps and safety wearables address only the interpersonal domain, leaving the structural, disciplinary and hegemonic drivers of Gender-Based Violence untouched — and argues HCI should design across all four.

In this vault

• AnalysesGender-Based Violence
• CountersTechno-Solutionism