The Power, by Naomi Alderman

Hey listeners! Welcome to Brown Girls Read podcast. This is your host Daman Tiwana and this is Khyati Thakur, and both of us love reading books. On this podcast, we bring our stories, our culture and our favorite books to you every month, and we discuss the parts that were most meaningful to us and how we found them interesting or relatable as brown girls. 

Today, we are discussing The Power. Before we begin our discussion Khyati, do you want to give our listeners an overview of the book.

The Power is a book written by Naomi Alderman. The background of the premise is set up in the sense that in a matriarchal society, a male writer writes to an influential author about his account of how the matriarchy came to be. 5000 years earlier (which is our current time), men dominated the society. Then, women developed the ability to send electrical jolts from their fingers. This power helped protect the women from the male atrocities. But in addition to protection, women could attack, and even kill men. And this is how women became the dominant gender. 

The story spanned over a decade and the book is divided into several parts starting from the beginning of the decade. There are a few main characters who serve as the point of view for the reader. There’s Roxy who is one of the first ones to get this power at the age of 14, and it happens when she watched her mom getting attacked. 

Then there’s Tunde, who is the only main male character— plays a pivotal role, because he is the one who records the use of power happening and shares it online, after which it is on news channels and everywhere. Tunde, because he got famous with that 1 video of his that started this frenzy of videos, he becomes a self proclaimed journalist for CNN. He starts travelling to different countries to take videos of how women in different countries are reacting to their power.

Allie is another teenage girl who is fostered by a couple, a cruel couple who hit her, abuse her, rape her, one whom she ends up killing with her power.. What’s interesting about Allie is that she hears a voice inside her, that she thinks is her long lost mom. This voice has been her guiding light all through. After killing her foster father, she runs away and reaches a convent. This place is kind of a refuge for girls who have discovered their power and who have been shunned from their families, who thought they were demons. Allie hides her real name. She calls herself Eve. Eve or Allie, starts to behave as if she is their healer. She tells them that she hears God’s voice. She has formed a cult of her own and has proclaimed herself as Mother Eve.

Alright Khyati, let’s get into our discussion..

What’s absolutely refreshing to read (and although it’s all a fantasy) is when the news spread that girls have got this weird thing going on where they can electrocute guys, parents told their boys to not go out alone because it’s not safe. I have dreamed of this world ever since!

This to me was a reminder of the alternate reality which is our reality where boys have harassed girls for no reason, hurt them for no reason, then girls are made to stay in as a result because parents want to protect them. There are girls only schools for this reason- safety. 

Yes, and we get to see a different reality in this book! 

A very interesting anecdote that is mentioned is in Riyadh. Women have started a series of protests there against men and how they have treated them for centuries. And I was thinking, in all the extremely violent protests that have ever happened anywhere, men have been the cause of violence. There are mobs of just men that we see in newspapers setting things on fire in protests against religion or anything else. It felt so refreshing and empowering to imagine women doing something like this to get straight with men. And men staring scarily at this! 

Another interesting thing here was that a group of women check Tunde to see if he means any harm or not, and once they are sure they take him with them and protect and guard him— there is no reason to harm him— and this reminds me of all these sexual assault and rape cases, like the nirbhaya case that took 7 years to come to justice, such a horrendous act— these women in real world mean no harm to men but are still hunted and harmed and killed. This story goes to show that even when women have power they still have a heart, they don’t have that malice to kill you or attack you or use you just because you are a male, they don’t see you as a prey. Like if Tunde was a woman filming a revolution of hundreds of women, I trust that she would have been groped and assaulted or even raped by now. Because that’s their testosterone or adrenaline, or whatever shitty excuse patriarchy has provided men with!!! Yes, absolutely right!

During one of Tunde’s journalism trips there’s also mention of female victims of sex trafficking — kept in some jail— who have the power woken in them by a young girl bringig them their meals.. And they kill every man. It was satisfying to read. I know it’s fiction but in cases like these I wish it was the truth. Me too!  Can you imagine how all of this would stop completely if girls get this power in them in reality?  In Moldova, the women form their own paramilitary gangs after freeing themselves from sexual slavery and the government had been overthrown.  Btw on a side note, 1 in every 100 women are sex trafficked in moldova, which is for real. It has been a country only for the last 20 years. 

And the recent rise of such gender-based crimes in India is so scary to me! But, in this book’s alternate universe, in India, women with power are called kali. They speak of Delhi where there was a time that women couldn’t walk alone, and now women have risen and walk in solidarity with others  “Now they will know,” shouts one woman into Tunde’s camera, “that they are the ones who should not walk out of their houses alone at night. They are the ones who should be afraid.” Fair or unfair, this is an emotion we have felt. Why are we in this position where we have to be careful when going out, worry if the streets are dark or shady, and have all time and dress rules imposed on us? I’m sure every woman has at one time questioned this, and have fantasized of this alternate reality.  

I always think about the last time I was in India and I wasn’t afraid to go out alone. It is getting horrible with each passing year, especially for women. And I am sure all the women must be so tired of hearing the same things from their parents that they shouldn’t go out alone at night.

I also think that this is the first time in the book the misuse of power is actually shown. When this women in Delhi runs behind Tunde to rape him. How power could corrupt anyone. Up until now they have only shown how women have used their power to get justice but now is where they show the other side of the coin.

Yeah.. and it also shows Tunde a different side of this reality I think. He then travels to Bessapara thinking it more safer and lucrative for his journalism because it’s a new matriarchal country being created by Allie in collaboration with their queen Tatiana. But, not before long even here we start to see power imbalance.. Tatiana implements new security rules in Bessapara. The Internet is blocked and regulated. Press is being controlled. Police don’t even investigate male murders. There’re New laws: each man must have his passport And official documents stamped with the name of his female guardian. Her written permission will be needed for any journey he undertakes. Any man who breaks these laws will be subject to capital punishment. No man can take money or other possessions out of the country. Men are no longer permitted to drive cars, to own businesses, to gather together in groups larger than three without a woman present, to vote. Women are allowed in fact required to discipline any man who is seen breaking laws; a reality for women in some places. 

I was like..wow! I mean, of course this is sexism and inhuman…and in line with the taliban law, which imposes these rules on women. But doesnt it feel so good to read those words, for once!

When bessapara becomes unsafe, Tunde is alone and feels unsafe on streets, is catcalled and yelled obscenities at, by women. Men were being called sluts. And he wrote in his diary- “for the first time today on the road I was afraid”. And then it occurred to me that you know why even men who call themselves feminists, why they can’t actually ever experience what we go through ..it’s because they have never actually been afraid of walking on the road alone. They have never been teased in metros, no one has ever tried to touch them inappropriately. No one has ever called them slut. What they are called, if they sleep around with girls is playboy …which is not even used derogatory. So how can they actually ever understand what it is like to be a woman? It’s actually a badge of honor for men! How conveniently men are encouraged to have sexual experiences while women are supposed to guard their virginity, and no one sees the irony in that! Just  creating a culture of lying and shame. 

And women have been very slyly taught to not talk about what is happening to them. So much so, that they have accepted it as a part of their daily lives. This exact thing that we are talking about is explained by Tunde when he writes these lines: “at first we did not speak our hurt because it was not manly. Now we do not speak it because we were afraid and ashamed and alone without hope, each of us alone. It is hard to know when the first became the second”. And this is exactly how women feel today, right? Women who can’t stand up for themselves for innumerable reasons. It starts with just 1. 1 woman who was probably ashamed to say something that was done to her and it passes on and on and before we know it ..it becomes a norm …to blame victims, to blame women for getting raped, to blame women for not taking care of their families ..and so on!

Since we are talking about Tunde, I had an Observation at many points in the book: being the only main male character Tunde is sorta objectified in several parts of the book for having a charming grin or being attractive or something— while women are not written like that. This too is such an opposite- because otherwise, especially with male authors, the female protagonists are objectified always. So it was relieving and empowering at the same time to read that. Yeah, that’s right.

Also, there is such a thing called ‘guy flicks’. I am so sick of this term “chick flicks” because it’s kind of like putting us down. Even some girls use it in a derogatory sense like “oh I don’t like to watch chick flicks” ..but now with this change in arrangement around the world, there are guys watching guy flicks! There’s also a chick-lit category in books, treated like somehow a lesser version of literature. And the same is true in all other parts of life, like sports there is cricket and women’s cricket, football and women’s football and so on.. Movies and female oriented movies.. In all of these, there are strong implications of one being better than the other. And the girls’ running away from these tags just want to appear cooler, better than others.

There are various men’s movements that have also started against the atrocities being done by women. Tunde reports on those as well. There is a different kind of terrorism coming up now, a gender based terrorism.So, Tunde is actually invited by this “terrorist group” to take an interview with them. That interview was interesting because you could see the 2 sides of the situation from the men’s eyes. 

Through a meninist reddit thread we see people angry at Mother Eve being seen as a god, because God is a he not a she. This was all so reflective of all these real meninist groups on reddit who just spew anger and hatred at feminists and activists doing the real work. In the book, the head of the meninist group says at one point… Have you seen the numbers on domestic violence against men? On murders of men by women?” and again such a stark comparison to our reality! Yeah, it is so difficult to even imagine a world like that, even in a fiction novel.

There is this quote in the book that I really liked that goes like: “The subject is: how many men do we really need? Think it over, they say. 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. Good, clean, obedient men, of course there will always be a place for those. But how many is that? Maybe one in ten.” Now I am not saying that I don’t agree with their ideology. I am completely on board with what they are saying, but that’s no reason to kill or do atrocities on one gender. I hope the world as it is today, will realize that.

Yes, we hope! But, a place of privilege is a very comfortable place to live in, and very few find the need to introspect and look outside, and this exactly is  what patriarchy has given to men!

Okay now, let’s move on from Tunde to another man in this book, Allie’s foster father, who liked to think of himself as a good man educating a little girl in the men’s world. And I was like— that sounds familiar! All of us have experienced mansplaining in some form or another, often by well meaning good men. This is a little out of context from the story but this was actually the first thought that came to my mind when I read this. 

Yeah, I am sure there are so many men who I have met who think like that as well. That this is a man’s world and girls should be educated on how to stay in their boundaries. What bullshit! Or that women don’t have brains big enough to know things by themselves without the great insights from men.

And since you called bullshit— Allie, as Mother Eve, does all sorts of TV segments performing miracles healing people, which is all orchestrated to only bring mild cases that will be successful with mild electric current through their nerves. Goes to show how power corrupts everyone and anyone— giving this god-like sense of delusion. Maybe power is the real culprit, not gender. The whole setup of allies conventions is so much like those Indian babas where they put on a similar show and then ask for donations from the audience. 

Yes, I was thinking the same. Although I do like this message that Mother Eve sends out to the world: “you have been taught that you are unclean, that you are not holy, that your body is impure and could never harbor the divine. You have been taught to despise everything you are and too long only to be a man. But you have been taught lies.” It’s so simple and so powerful.

Yes! Allie definitely comes from a position of having experienced the atrocities and abuse herself, so a lot that she says doesn’t sound hollow like the babas usually do.

In fact, in this book, Tatiana, (queen of Bessapara) is closer to the men in power that we see in real life. The way Tatiana treats men, is so reflective of how men in power treat women— statements like men don’t know how to be silent, always interrupting the betters, thinks we want to hear what he has to say, needs to be taught manners, and so much more and worse… Allie doesn’t like it but remembers when men are in power it can be much worse. 

Another man in power is Roxy’s dad, who is a don/mafia leader or something— and she looks up to that power. She wants that power. (Something in a general sense I think girls may feel growing up, looking at how fathers can get stuff done, how the world answers differently to them vs the moms, how their anger and arrogance can translate to action.) 

That’s a very astute observation! And I completely agree. <music>

Okay so that’s what we had to discuss from The Power , and now we want to share why this book gets Brownie Points from us!

Brownie Points

👍 Love how creative and well researched this book is— with all ads for defensive products for men, power enhancers for women.  

👍 The undertones of victim blaming reversed are amazingly written, in an alternate universe where now men are assaulted. It goes to show how many things have been normalized and we have been desensitized to, which are not okay. This book literally shows you how it is to be in another person’s shoes for once. I agree with this! At various points in the book, I was like this is so refreshing to read that now men have to deal with these things.

👍 I also loved that manufactured exchange of emails between Naomi and Neil, which hints that this manuscript was written by a man and the woman in power to approve it/publish it.. And she even recommends that he should consider publishing the book under a woman’s pseudonym.. Something a lot of female authors have had to do because women’s literature is not taken seriously..  Yeah! I loved that too. The gender reversal is too real!

👎 Somewhere describing scents of Delhi, there is frying bhindi with cardamom— who puts elaichi in bhindi? It’s bad enough they put it in biryani, but bhindi.. ugh! Now that’s either a flaw in research or someone’s cooking some weird ass recipes out there! 

Overall this book was a stark comment on the gender inequality we exist in, which has been so normalized, that it takes this kind of alternate reality to show how wrong that is. It also reminded me a bit of that Bollywood movie Stree— which also highlighted this in a lighter, funnier way. 

This book is also special to us in a way– because this is the one we read for a book club, the one through which we met, and I think we both were really excited about this book; but that book discussion didn’t happen because everyone else felt it was a LONG BOOK. I still can’t get over that because I can’t comprehend how a 370 pg book is long, but I am glad in a way that it made things easier for us to filter– like I knew you were probably the only other person there who had the same love for books as I do. 

Yeah! I was surprised too. And this book is so easy to read. There are shorter chapters and I have to confess that seeing all this violence done against men, make these chapters super interesting as well. Do I sound like this crazy feminist extremist? I don’t care!

So, this is The Power for us. Thank you for listening to this episode of Brown Girls Read podcast! If you like what you hear, please leave us a 5-star rating and a comment. You can support us at anchor.fm/browngirlsread/support. Your support will allow us to continue this podcast and bring more episodes to you. Also, Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us on Instagram- browngirlsreadpod, and if you have book recommendations for us, you can leave us a comment or message on Instagram. 

For our next episode we’re reading Ikigai by Hector Garcia. We hope you’ll be reading with us and until then, Keep listening!

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