The Power

The Power by Naomi Alderman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

SPOILERS AHEAD:

A mind-blowing, clever, and shocking story revolving around power and gender, and the effect power has on gender stereotypes and expectations. Parts of this book were extremely hard to read, because things like this actually happen around the world, but those atrocities are being perpetrated upon women, not men. When the power between men and women is flipped on its head, what comes to pass in this book is not a more gentle world, but one that is equally horrifying. Turns out, it's not his gender that gives man an incredible capacity for cruelty, it's the power he has, a power that imbibes him with invulnerability and a sense of invincibility in the face of normal checks and balances. Women are not, in fact, immune to this perversion

As the male "writer" of this "historical fiction" notes, "Gender is a shell game. What is a man? Whatever a woman isn't. What is a woman? Whatever a man is not. Tap on it and it's hollow. Look under the shells: it's not there." Gender is only important in that it signals to others where the real power lies. Women and men, deep down, are the same: wanting power, taking what they can get. Roxy and Tunde are talking towards the end, trying to make sense of all that had happened to them. "One of them says, 'Why did they do it, Nina and Darrell?' And the other answers, 'Because they could.' That is the only answer there ever is."

The men and women in this book don't truly connect with one another until the balance of power between them has been leveled. Tunde had fear slowly building in him with every female encounter, and it wasn't until he was with Roxy that he could relax and connect. Roxy who had her power stripped away by those she trusted most, had been reminded again and again that she can't trust men, but Tunde looked at her and said, Even without your Power, you are powerful. He helped her see that her identity wasn't tied to her power, but was something that couldn't ever be taken away.

One interesting this to note is that, other than at the very beginning, when Allie is noted as mixed-race, we rarely see mention of racial divide and disparity as the power structure shifts from male to female leadership and privilege. Maybe that was too many layers to include in the book, but if this was truly the way the world changed, it's not like racism would disappear overnight. You'd better believe there are just as many female racists as there are male.

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