![\"\"](\"http:\/\/empathygap.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/The-Power.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nNow I\u2019m frightened. But it\u2019s not the book that I find frightening. It\u2019s the reaction of many women to it in the real world which terrifies. The author\u2019s own position, too, seems paradoxical.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not what you\u2019d call fine writing, but if you are happy to judge a book by its page turning qualities, then this is a good book. My own personal criterion of quality is whether you find yourself thinking about a book for some days after reading it. The Power<\/em> by Naomi Alderman passes that test also.<\/p>\n But I didn\u2019t say it was nice<\/em>. It\u2019s not nice<\/em>. It\u2019s really quite nasty. It\u2019s odd, isn\u2019t it, that the safe-space and trigger warning generation seems simultaneously to have sensibilities so jaded, so inured to depictions of violence, that the datum of normality is on an ever-escalating ratchet. The resolution of this paradox is that novels of this type have one foot in the world of computer games. No great insight is required to make this observation given that Naomi Alderman also writes game scripts. This hybrid of novel-cum-game potentially allows the gamer\u2019s cartoonish levels of violence to be imported into the novel format, to the detriment of the novelistic element, in my opinion. To an antediluvian brought up on the gentility of E.M.Forster and Andr\u00e9 Gide, it is all rather brutish.<\/p>\n Is it a feminist novel? I was almost poised to declare it an anti-feminist novel. How can the violent excesses of the second half of the book be regarded as presenting female power in a favourable light? Unfortunately, those in thrall to a sufficiently powerful feminist lens can do so, it seems. The Power<\/em> was reviewed on a Radio 4 book programme a month or two back. Owen Jones opined that it was \u201ca fascinating dissection of the Patriarchy \u2013 it\u2019s a satire on Patriarchy<\/em>\u201d. Err, no. It isn\u2019t. Mr Jones proceeded to treat us to the familiar feminist line on VAWG. But the book is about female violence upon men \u2013 and this is not allegorical, it is essentially<\/em> about female violence upon men. Was it my imagination, or was the female presenter a little embarrassed by Jones\u2019s take on the book? She expressed her view as being \u201cwhoever has the power is going to abuse it<\/em>\u201d. That is certainly very much closer to the mark. But I get ahead of myself.<\/p>\n Adolescent girls suddenly acquire The Power \u2013 the ability to send high voltage shocks from their fingers and electrocute others. Quickly it spreads to all women. Alderman\u2019s book examines the consequences of this change for society.<\/p>\n Spoiler alert! Synopsis follows. If you are thinking of reading the book you might wish to do so now, before proceeding.<\/p>\n The book opens with thugs breaking into Roxy\u2019s house and killing her mother and sticking Roxy in a cupboard. Turns out it was Roxy\u2019s Dad that sent the thugs to bump off her Mum, but we don\u2019t know that yet. Also it turns out later that Roxy was sexually abused (surprise!) by her piano teacher, so her Dad cut his balls off, as one does. Roxy discovers her ability to electrocute, and soon all adolescent girls do too. From them it spreads to all women. A man in a supermarket oppresses a girl by asking her to smile, so he gets zapped. Had it coming, the bastard. That\u2019s the start of The Day of the Girls. Domestic violence figures soar, boys get segregated for their own safety, girls start to fight each other. Girls with feeble power are mocked and shamed.<\/p>\n By chapter two we have The Power also being used by girls to sexually stimulate boys. Yes, there\u2019s going to be lots and lots of The Power being used to execute sexual violence, as well as plain vanilla frying of brains and such.<\/p>\n Mixed race Allie was orphaned and passed around many foster homes. Her foster \u2018Dad\u2019, Mr Montgomery-Taylor, sexually abuses her (surprise!), so, obviously, the menz darn well deserve what they\u2019ve got coming. That biblical voice in Allie\u2019s head is a little worrying.<\/p>\n We have some delightful vignettes such as seven policemen beating a woman to within an inch of her life, thus further legitimising what the menz have got coming. By chapter seven the Saudi women are on the rampage. They want sex, and they\u2019re going to get it by raping men. But we all know what vile misogynistic scum the Saudis are, so that\u2019s OK too, you must agree. (No, you MUST agree). In the blink of an eye, masses of cities all over the world are being run by gangs of women \u201cmostly freed from sexual slavery\u201d (which legitimises anything, including near obliteration of the human race, as we\u2019ll see).<\/p>\n Ricky, one of Roxy\u2019s Dad\u2019s mobsters, gets raped by three women. \u201cDown there it was just burned flesh, fern pattern on the thighs, pink and brown and raw red and black. Like a Sunday roast<\/em>\u201d. Roxy and the girls take revenge (role reversal). Tunde nearly gets raped too, but is saved by other women (more role reversal).<\/p>\n Jocelyn is a nice girl \u2013 really \u2013 but a little uncontrolled. \u201cHis scalp crisps under her hand. He screams. Inside his skull liquid is cooking. Delicate parts are fusing and congealing. The lines of power are scarring him, faster than thought. She can\u2019t hold it back. It\u2019s not a good way to go. She didn\u2019t mean to do it<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n Roxy takes over the Mob and also becomes an international big wheel via the leadership of Allie who is now Mother Eve. Mother Eve can now use The Power to heal and to control people\u2019s thoughts and actions. Pretty darn cool superpower. She\u2019s still being guided by her biblical voices. She declares God to be a woman, that \u201cwoman rules over man<\/em>\u201d, and that Lesbianism is preferable. This all seems vaguely familiar.<\/p>\n We are constantly reminded that men are vile and deserve all they damned well get, such as,<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a place men come when they want a woman they can use without law or licence, discard without censure<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are eight of them, four women, four men, all mid-twenties\u2026.Bankers. One of the men already has his hand up one of the women\u2019s skirt<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have to ask ourselves who is on the side of justice when we meet the brave fighters of Bessapara \u2013 many of whom were trafficked women, shackled women, women who would have died alone in the dark<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a time that a woman could not walk alone here\u2026.now they (i.e., men) will know that they are the ones who should not walk out of their houses alone at night. They are the ones who should be afraid<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n A quote with a large number of highlighters showing on my kindle is \u201cThe only wave that changes anything is a tsunami. You have to tear down the houses and destroy the land if you want to be sure no one will forget you<\/em>.\u201d Bear that in mind when it comes to debating whether feminists might actually think it worthwhile destroying the planet and sending humans back to the Neolithic in order to achieve their feminist Utopia. And be worried.<\/p>\n There are no straight white males in the book who are not vile. Tunde is about the only non-vile male in the book, but he\u2019s Nigerian, so that\u2019s OK. Oh, and, Jocelyn\u2019s friend Ryan, but he\u2019s indeterminate on the gender spectrum, so that\u2019s OK too. Daniel, the archetypal straight white \u2018powerful\u2019 male politician is an egomaniac. Margot hates him and covets his job.<\/p>\n Once the pogrom of men has started \u2013 but the media are covering it up – Tom makes a plea on-air about the need to protect men. Gets sacked.<\/p>\n At the simplest level, The Power<\/em> is a tale of feminist wish-fulfilment. I\u2019m sure that the appeal of the book to many feminist readers will be simply this revenge-porn aspect. (\u201cAs I began to read this futuristic tale I was nodding and going YESS, when the young girls first discover their power, like when Wonder Woman kicks ass\u2026\u2026.<\/em> the book certainly packs a punch, makes you think, makes you dream makes you tingle and makes you wonder: what if?<\/em>\u201d reviewed on feministlibrary<\/a>). I spent the first half of the book hoping there would be more to it than that. There was. It got worse.<\/p>\n It seems women are not entirely lovely. Increasingly through the second half of the book, the women\u2019s often gratuitous violence becomes impossible to defend, surely even to someone of feminist sympathies. At least, you would think so. Disconcertingly, though, it would appear that women in the real world react differently \u2013 of which more shortly.<\/p>\n After her power kicks in, Margot\u2019s political career really takes off. It seems the public didn\u2019t mind her zapping her opponent live on TV. She becomes a sexual predator and starts to lie blatantly to further her career, selling out for power and money. (For all of which read \u201cjust like a man\u201d \u2013 more role reversal). \u201cLater, in the hotel, she buys a couple of drinks for one of the junior guys from the American embassy in the Ukraine. He\u2019s attentive \u2013 well, why wouldn\u2019t he be? She\u2019s going places. She rests her hand on his firm young ass as they ride the elevator together up to her suite<\/em>.\u201d Later, \u201cshe could lick the flesh straight off his bones, there\u2019s always more blokes where he came from; they\u2019re ten a penny. Especially if she were President<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n Tatiana becomes leader of Bessapara by the simple expedient of killing her husband, then goes full-on Stalin-Mao-Pol-Pot but worse. Men must be under the guardianship of a woman and have papers to prove it. Men may not gather. \u201cThey are rounding up the men without papers. They go away for \u2018work detail\u2019 but they do not return<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe young man swallows. \u2018I\u2019m sorry\u2019, he says. \u2018Did I tell you to speak?\u2019 she (Tatiana) says\u2026..\u2019Needs to be taught some manners\u2019, says one of the women\u2026..Tatiana plucks the bottle of brandy from the young man\u2019s hands\u2026.A glass of this is worth more than you\u2026.She drops it to the floor. The glass smashes\u2026..\u2019Lick it up\u2019, she says\u2026..There are glass fragments among the brandy\u2026\u2026He kneels down and begins to tongue the floor<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cThe police here no longer investigate the murder of men\u2026if a man is found dead it is presumed that a vengeance gang had given him his proper reward for his deeds in the time before. Even a young boy\u2026.a boy who is only fifteen now \u2013 what could he have done in the time before?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere are accounts on Tom Hobson\u2019s website of things happening in Bessapara that Jos can\u2019t really believe. Torture and experiments, gangs of women on the loose in the north near the border, murdering and raping men at will<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Roxy saves Tunde and Tunde saves the now-Powerless Roxy. They both witness the utter horror of mass rapes, torture and murder of men by gangs of militarised feral women who attack refugee camps for the purpose, high on drugs which enhance their power further. Graphic depictions of this sadistic sexual violence perpetrated by women.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are weak and we are strong. You are the gift and we are the owners. You are the victim and we are the victors. You are the slave and we are the masters. You are the sacrifice and we are the recipients\u2026\u2026And when she killed him it was ecstasy<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe will not stop screaming. Two of the women take him by the throat and send a paralysis into his spine. One squats on top of him. She pulls off his trousers. He is not unconscious\u2026..The woman cups his balls and dick in her palm\u2026..She puts her head to one side, makes a sad face at him. She might as well have said in any language in the world \u2018What\u2019s the matter? Can\u2019t get it up?\u2019\u2026.The woman sitting on the man\u2019s chest applies her palm to his genitals\u2026..He\u2019s still doing muffled screaming\u2026..His cock comes up like a salute, like they always do\u2026\u2026She holds his balls, tugs on them once, twice, just as if she were giving him a treat, and then jolts him fiercely, right through the scrotum. It\u2019d feel like a glass spike, driven straight through\u2026..He screams, arches his back. And she unbuttons the crotch of her combat trousers and sits on his cock. Her mates are laughing now and she\u2019s laughing herself as she pumps herself up and down on him. She\u2019s got her hand firmly planted in the centre of his stomach, giving him a dose every time she thrusts up with bunched thighs<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no sense in what is done here this day. There is no territory to be gained, or a particular wrong to be avenged, or even soldiers to be taken. They kill the older men in front of the younger with palms to the faces and the throat, and one shows off her special skill of drawing crude effects upon the flesh with the tips of her fingers. Many of them take some of the men, and use them, or simply play with them\u2026..They do it because they can<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026they have the arm off. The others are at his legs, and his neck, and the other arm\u2026.Like the wind stripping leaves from a tree, so inexorable, so violent\u2026\u2026.they get his head off, and at last he is quiet, their fingers dark with his blood<\/em>\u2026\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n By this time, it is clear that Alderman is not portraying women as demonstrating a responsible and constructive use of Power.<\/p>\n Well, it\u2019s clear to me. Staggeringly, it is not to others. I watched several YouTube videos of women reviewing the book. You might have expected these reviewers to have found the women\u2019s violence against men as salutary. You might have expected some conclusion to be drawn, such as \u2018power corrupts\u2019 or something along those lines. You might have expected the extremity of the violence to at least be recognised as reprehensible. But no. The words these women used to describe the book were \u201cfun\u201d, \u201cexciting\u201d, \u201cfulfilling\u201d, \u201csatisfying\u201d. One said, \u201cI did feel like I wanted to get back at men for the pain inflicted on women<\/em>\u201d. The nearest another managed to come to condemnation of brutal mass murder of men by women was that it was \u201cdisconcerting the decisions people make<\/em>\u201d. Do note the use of the word \u201cpeople\u201d there.<\/p>\n Another woman reviewer said, \u201cFor me it showed the depth of pain that these women felt about what men had done to them and that was the important point<\/em>\u201d. Most of the men in question were attempting to flee, in refugee camps. Deconstruct the sentiment behind that remark. Do you recall those social experiment videos on YouTube in which a woman is violent to a man in public \u2013 and the public reaction is to assume the bloke must have done something to deserve it? Well, that woman\u2019s comment is exactly in that tradition. Some women \u2013 is it the majority? \u2013 simply cannot interpret a woman as being responsible for her own violence against a man. It would seem their psychology compels them always to hold a man, or men in general, as culpable for their own victimisation \u2013 even when the level of women\u2019s violence comes within an ace of obliterating the entire human race. Still the prejudice holds.<\/p>\n One woman reviewer declared the MRA bloggers made her really angry and complained that there were no male allies in the book. That\u2019s right, whilst women are busy around the globe electrocuting men to death, this woman seems still to think that men should be supporting their noble cause. This is pretzel logic taken to new heights.<\/p>\n There is a toxicity abroad in our society, but it isn\u2019t masculinity.<\/p>\n Immediately before the denouement, the global conflict which results in Cataclysm, Allie perceives the fraudulence of the militant women\u2019s supposed moral legitimacy.<\/p>\n Mrs Montgomery-Taylor, it turns out, was the prime mover behind her husband\u2019s sexual abuse of Allie. And not only Allie but a succession of children. When Allie finally learns of this, she realises the skew in her own perception, that the simplistic \u2018men bad, women good\u2019 won\u2019t cut it. \u201cto denounce her would be to denounce everything. If she roots this out, she roots out herself. Her own roots are rotten already. And with this she is undone<\/em>\u201d. At last, Allie questions her inner voice. Is it not, after all, the unimpeachable voice of rectitude and justice? \u201cI keep meaning to ask. Who are you? I\u2019ve wondered for a while. Are you the serpent?<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n Tellingly the voice attempts to exonerate itself thus: \u201cThe whole point of me was to keep things simple for you, you see? That\u2019s what you wanted. Simple feels safe. Certainty feels safe<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n This is the most important passage in the book. It exposes as clearly as Alderman dares the appeal of an ideology based on cognitive minimalism. Eliminating moral dilemmas at a stroke, women are always blameless whatever they do. But Allie has finally realised that this is not reality.<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s bad and who\u2019s good? Who persuaded the other to eat the apple? Who has the power and who\u2019s powerless?<\/em>\u201d asks the voice. \u201cIt\u2019s more complicated than that\u2026..You people like to pretend things are simple, even at your own cost<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n Allie silences the voice for ever \u2013 but goes right on with her jihad in any case. This is the nature of tragedy. She tells her followers, \u201cthe apocalypse is near at hand and only the righteous will be saved, she can call the world to a new order. The end of all flesh is near, because the Earth is filled with violence. Therefore, build an ark. It will be simple. That is all they want<\/em>.\u201d It is hard to read this as anything other than an admonishment.<\/p>\n Roxy is not keen on apocalypse. She says to Mother Eve, \u201cBut you know what\u2019s going to happen. We\u2019ll bomb them and they\u2019ll bomb us and it\u2019ll spread out wider and wider\u2026.the women will suffer as well as the men, Evie. The women will die just as much as the men will if we bomb ourselves back to the stone age. And then we\u2019ll be in the stone age\u2026.And then there will be five thousand years of rebuilding, five thousand years where the only thing that matters is: can you hurt more, can you do more damage, can you instill fear<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd then the women will win<\/em>\u201d, replies Allie.<\/p>\n But what sort of a \u201cwin\u201d is it, Alderman implicitly asks? Near obliteration of the human race, with the mass suffering which is implied, followed by a return to the Neolithic. After 5,000 years re-running human history what we end up with (according to Alderman) is just like now \u2013 except with the sex roles reversed. So in what way is anything improved?<\/p>\n Monstrously, those whose world-view is that men are currently powerful and privileged may actually regard this as a win for women. I\u2019m not even sure of Alderman herself. It is possible that the loopier feminist could read the whole book without thinking the planet-wide violence against men had gone too far. Anything \u2013 anything \u2013 is justified, even putting the human race back 5,000 years, in order to achieve feminist Utopia.<\/p>\n Based on its contents alone I would have been inclined to praise the book (though not necessarily its readers) for illustrating how destructive female violence would be if they were gifted such a Power. Given the premise, I think Alderman has the subsequent course of events bang on \u2013 at least as far as the Cataclysm. Exactly what would happen during history#2, and what sort of society would emerge in 5,000 years, is another matter. That, I suspect, she has wrong.<\/p>\n However, I am very conflicted regarding what Ms Alderman herself intended. Could it be that she thought near-global death and trashing humans back to the Neolithic was a price worth paying to achieve a society just like our present society, but with women \u201con top\u201d? If she were reincarnated at that time, she would be so<\/em><\/strong> disappointed at how not-on-top that turns out to be! \u00a0(Ask Norah Vincent<\/a>). There are reasons to be concerned that Ms Alderman inclines rather more to the revenge-porn position than the salutary-tale-of-corrupting-power perspective. For example, she has explained her motive for writing the book thus,<\/p>\n \u201cI got onto the Tube<\/a> and saw a poster for some movie, a thriller, where the main image was a beautiful woman crying. It was also what I was doing: waking up crying, feeling that I might break into pieces. It felt like the culture we live in was saying: \u2018Good. That’s what you should be doing. We like it. We find it sexy\u2019. Hey, that crying that you’re doing<\/a> right now, carry on with that, that’s sexy, that\u2019s great. We love it when women cry. We love it when women suffer. Do more of that. Hey, it’s really attractive. I just started thinking furiously on this Tube train about what I would have to do, or what would have to change in the world for me to be sitting opposite a poster of a really beautiful, attractive man crying.<\/em>\u201d I simply do not recognise what she is claiming here. We (ie., men) love it when women suffer? We find it sexy? No, false. I believe that in general men and women both react in the same way to seeing a woman cry \u2013 namely with sympathy and concern. Why does Ms Alderman think differently?<\/p>\n In the book, Margot, day dreaming in a political meeting with the hated Daniel and others, thinks, \u201cShe could kill them. That is the profound truth of it\u2026\u2026Nothing that either of these men says is really of any great significance, because she could kill them in three moves before they stirred in their comfortably padded chairs\u2026.The power to hurt is a kind of wealth<\/em>\u201d. What does this tell us about Naomi Alderman? Does she think that men sit around musing on how easily they could kill women? Disturbingly this is indeed the basis of feminist patriarchy theory: that men dominate in society by physical violence upon women \u2013 real or threatened. But I know, via my lived experience, that it is untrue.<\/p>\n It is difficult to decide whether Alderman is deliberately exposing the unacceptable extremes of feminism, or glorying in contemplating their fruition. I am prevented from working it out by Poe\u2019s Law. Take, for example, this extract, supposedly characterising the emerging consensus amongst the increasingly murderous women,<\/p>\n \u201cHow many men do we really need?…Men are dangerous. Men commit the great majority of crimes. Men are less intelligent, less diligent, less hard-working, their brains are in their muscles and their pricks. Men are more likely to suffer from diseases and they are a drain on the resources of the country. Of course we need them to have babies, but how many do we need for that? Not as many as women\u2026.Maybe one in ten<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n A TV presenter reacts to this with the words, \u201cI blame those men\u2019s rights people; they\u2019re so extreme, they\u2019ve provoked this kind of response.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n What am I to make of this given that, here in the real world, the suggestion that males would be best reduced to around one-in-ten has been a staple of radical feminism for decades<\/a>? And, in truth, it took decades for even a small number of men to have the temerity to object to views suggesting they should be culled. Is Alderman just winding us up in suggesting that radical feminism was a reaction to the men\u2019s movement, rather than the reverse? I cannot tell.<\/p>\n In the book Alderman has Jocelyn describe UrbanDox\u2019s web site as \u201chorrible\u201d for observing that what is happening is a \u201choly war between men and women<\/em>\u201d \u2013 and yet this war has been declared de facto<\/em> by women the world over \u201cbecause they could\u201d \u2013 and is explicitly holy to Mother Eve and her followers. Yet she refers in the book<\/em><\/strong> to \u201cthe men\u2019s movement, and\u2026their particular conspiracy theories<\/em>\u201d. But how can Alderman refer to men\u2019s concern \u2013 in the book \u2013 as being a conspiracy, given that shortly most people in the world are to die in the Cataclysm?<\/p>\n