One of the best and most hard hitting books I’ve read this year is Naomi Alderman’s unflinching look at human nature and equality in ‘The Power’. Be warned, it’s a very difficult read in places. It’s also extremely thought provoking and this is what it provoked me to think;
‘One of them said, “why do they do it?” And the other replied, “Because they can.” That is the final truth about power. It is shaped like nothing except itself.’
Having gone away and thought about it for a bit, here is my tuppence worth. I’ve seen this described as a different take on the Handmaid’s Tale, as a piece of dystopian literary fiction, as both feminist and anti feminist, and as a really inaccurate description of gender politics. In my opinion, like power itself, this book is shaped like nothing except itself. However it was hard for me personally not to compare it to Stephen and Owen King’s Sleeping Beauties, which embraces similar themes. However, where the latter heavily emphasises a general moral superiority in women, suggesting that when a woman goes off the rails it’s because a man pushed her, The Power takes a different stance.
In The Power, women start to develop an ability to generate an electric charge which can be delivered via touch into another person causing a mild or not so mild shock, pain, maiming and death. As more and more women embrace this power, society shifts from a patriarchy to a female patriarchy. Notice that I don’t say matriarchy. The reason behind this is that anyone who has studied chimps versus Bonobos would probably agree that a Matriarchy in higher primates is completely different to a patriarchy – it is not simply an exchange of a male for a female seat of power. And that really is the point. The women inherit an already flawed and corrupt system where the underlying message is one of permissiveness to ‘might makes right’. In other words if you have the strength, then whatever you do is fine – rule by power and inclination rather than reason and responsibility. I’ve seen more than one reviewer criticise the fact that the women, once they gain control, act just like the worst men do now with the world arranged to suit them, as it is currently. The idea being that biologically there is a fundamental difference to how men and women would handle power. I think that just goes to show how entrenched and endemic is the attitude that our traditional gender roles are inextricably linked to biological imperative. In actuality this is utterly ludicrous when you really consider it.
At least when you consider it in terms of evolution and societal progression. Archaeological evidence points to Cro Magnon females being incredibly strong, to the idea that they hunted alongside males at least until they had children, to the fact that once they especially focused on gathering rather than hunting, their sources of food provision were far more reliable. In terms of raw power men do tend to be stronger than women, but if you compare a healthy optimally fit man with a healthy optimally fit woman, the difference in pound for pound strength is less than you might think, and women tend to have greater endurance. This isn’t a pissing contest by the way and I’m not suggesting that there is no biological imperative, only that it is far less of an influencer on where we are now than we think.
Where does this fit in terms of The Power? Well, Alderman rather nicely turns all the usual arguments – women are weaker, they’re designed to be home makers and carers, a society run by women would be peaceful and pleasure loving etc – on their heads. She highlights the idea that once one sex is on top, it is very easy to present any set of facts to fit the story you want to tell. Just like history, the story of society and social biology is told by the victors and the victors will always tell the story that strengthens their position.
There is a lot of rape in this book. All of it is horrific because rape is horrific, but some of it is extremely hard to read – as it should be. What some people are going to have a problem with is that it is usually women raping men. And we’re not talking slipping a mickey-finn and a viagra in a drink, we’re talking violent gang rape ending in death. (The biology of that is explained.) Once again Alderman is turning all the arguments about rape and whether it’s validity should be questioned, inside out. Two points here: one, rape is probably the only crime where you can be the victim and yet you’re still treated as the perpetrator – the crime has two perpetrators until a jury (assuming it gets that far) decides who the victim is. Two, it’s a real marker of what attitudes still need adjustment in current mainstream western society today, that it is harder to read about a man being raped than a woman. We are used to hearing that it happens to women. Even the most well informed amongst us often cannot help a half smothered knee-jerk thought ‘where was she at the time? What was she wearing? Why didn’t she have someone with her? etc etc’ In fact it’s soul destroying when you think how much more easily we will accept rape and abuse of a woman than anyone else, as if it’s just part of the life experiences of that sex. Alderman gets us to address this attitude by reversing the sexes of the victim and perpetrator, pulling the teeth out of the tendency to minimise sexual abuse of women – even by women and victims themselves. Because if it’s horrific when it happens to a man, it’s just as horrific if it happens to a woman. While the author pulls no punches depicting this, it isn’t in anyway gratuitous.
There are many reversals of gender and sex stereotype here, too many to list, and the point is always to ask ‘is this an acceptable way to treat anyone?’
The main theme shown by these reversals is, of course, power and its abuses. I know some people have found the idea that women in charge not resulting in a peaceful, loving society quite distasteful. I can understand why because it goes against the story of society as we are told it from when we are born, the story of religion and biological imperative and conditioning. A story which is, by and large, bollocks. A new society coming into sudden power will almost always take the form, at least temporarily, of the old system. Where there is no organisation behind a rise to dominance, power and those who wield it, will spread out to fill the available space, like gas or suffering. Human beings sit on a bell curve of angels to arseholes and most of us are somewhere in the middle. Women crave power and violence just as men do. It is ridiculously naive to say that we don’t have that capability for the darker mores of humanity within us.
As I mentioned before, the women in The Power inherited a corrupt system. Nelson Mandela once pointed out that those who prop up and are enriched or empowered by a corrupt system, are just as much its victims as those the system oppresses. There’s a reason the end of Apartheid was not the blood bath it should have been – those who sought to end it, sought an honest recounting of what they’d done and reconciliation. (And I know that racism still exists, and I’ve seen it first hand in South Africa. There’s a long way to go still.) The point I felt Alderman was making, is that those who had been oppressed suddenly had a way to seize power and instead of seeking conciliation, they became the oppressors under the banner if ‘we’re still not as bad as they were’. It’s understandable – there’s a lot of anger there and rightly so. But unless someone who gains power says, ‘ok so personal revenge is a luxury that a future society of equals cannot afford’, then we are doomed to repeat the same pattern. We need to get away from this idea that there is a select group of white, heterosexual, cis-gen men in charge, sitting in secret meetings and organising everything to their liking. The Patriarchy as such does not exist. We have all inherited a corrupt system and we are all its victims.
Finally I enjoyed references post cataclysm to a ‘male led’ society, mirroring our current archaeological records (sneered at and disputed in many quarters or men-y quarters) that we probably had many historical female led societies. And they weren’t paradises of peace, harmony and free love, they tended to be just as violent as male led ones – female patriarchies, not matriarchies. If you don’t believe me try looking into the cult of Cybele where men were emasculated to make them more female…
My verdict – yes I enjoyed the cleverness of this book and its linguistic prowess. I even had close engagement with the characters which can be very hit and miss in literary fiction. It had one of the most searing stings in the tail at the end I’ve ever seen. But it’s hard reading if you have a shred of empathy and it should be. It doesn’t contain answers to gender politics but it does point out what direction the questions we should be asking lie in. Go in with an open mind and best of luck to you.