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How Naomi Alderman’s novel The Power deconstructs the patriarchy - Vox

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There are two stories curled up inside of Naomi Alderman’s The Power, the Vox Book Club’s March pick. One of them is an empowerment fantasy, a revenge fantasy: What would happen if women didn’t have to be afraid of men anymore? What would happen if men stopped being a physical threat to women? What would you do? How would your life change? For the first half of The Power, it seems as though that’s the story Alderman is interested in telling. But in the second half, The Power changes. As the account we are reading becomes increasingly brutal, it stops being a classic women’s empowerment fantasy. Instead, The Power becomes about, well, power: about the threat of violence that undergirds all human interactions, about what we do with power, and about the ways in which power corrupts. Here’s how those two stories fit together, and why the effect is so devastating. The central premise of The Power is so simple as to be electrifying. What if every woman were to suddenly develop the ability to

Culture How Naomi Alderman’s novel The Power deconstructs the patriarchy The book starts as an empowerment fantasy and turns into a dystopia. by Constance Grady Mar 12, 2021, 3:30 PM UTC Lightning strikes in Sydney, Australia, on March 12. Mark Evans/Getty Images Constance Grady is a senior correspondent on the Culture team for Vox, where since 2016 she has covered books, publishing, gender, celebrity analysis, and theater. The Vox Book Club is linking to Bookshop.org to support local and independent booksellers. There are two stories curled up inside of Naomi Alderman's The Power , the Vox Bo

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