Under a feminist paradigm, the struggle for personal power might give way to dialogue, or power-with. Ideally, feminism changes the world, not by applying more power, but by facilitating dialogue and reasoned argument. Rather than applying power from a distance, feminists change the world by engaging in multiple, often quite temporary social networks or coalitions and influencing the connections and hierarchies within these networks. In other words, there is a moving in and out of short-term social alliances, which may be considered temporary contracts--the kind of contracts that, I would argue, contemporary, third-wave feminists are particularly given to. Hence, Jean-François Lyotard showed some prescience when he claimed in 1979 that “the temporary contract is in practice supplanting permanent institutions in the professional, emotional, sexual, cultural, family, and international domains, as well as in political affairs” (66). To experience power relationally, or to generate power between people or between people and technologies, may be thought of within the context of such temporary contracts.