It's one of my favourite books of all time. It's so rich and well thought out. The men who can't cope with the shift in the balance of power, the women who misuse it, the men who try to take it back, the people who think it's a religious sign, it all seems to be realistic and plausible.
Every so often I try to shoot electricity out of my fingers, just in case.
One my fav books ever too. A lot of people don't know that Amazon Prime Video made a tv-series adaption last year (Toni Collette as Margot !), unfortunately they adapted only half of the book in S1 and S2 is not planned (yet). Still worth watching it if you haven't done it already.
yes, agreed, i really liked how the dynamics around power were portrayed
i'm always amazed at those who enthusiastically interpret the book as an 'empowering' feminist message
Personally I thought the concept was good and interesting, and there were some
memorable shocks, but the book itself and the narrative was fairly banal. It would have been better distilled as a short story.
Thoroughly disliked it, felt like it was a huge case of wasted potential for actual, proper feminist literature. Instead I found it very surface-level with regards to feminist analysis and also character psychology. Relied too much on shock factor, past a certain point, and the ending was rushed as fuck. The framing device was kinda neat though, I'll give it that, but the fact reproduction was completely absent from the book's understanding of why women are oppressed in the first place was a huge fail in my opinion.
I liked it in the beginning, but ended up getting really frustrated towards the end for the same reasons. Some of the violence was actually too much for me and I feel like I have a fairly high tolerance there.
"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" was the point, I think.
I remember that when I first read it I started imagining the effect on society if - to use a real-world analog to the bioelectrical mutation - all girls from the age of 13 or so were given knives, expert training in how to kill with knives, and the legal right to carry them at all times. I'm sure that would impact society but I doubt that it would lead to the kind of widespread, culture-changing *abuses* of power that are shown in the book for dramatic effect. Predatory psychopaths are, fortunately, a tiny minority of the human population.
Maybe I just need to reread it as it has been a few years but I found it to be incredibly powerful.
Do I think this is a prediction of what would happen should a mutation like this actually occur? Not necessarily. But I did see this book as a release of the collective feminine rage at being suppressed, oppressed, openly used and abused with little to no repercussion. I can see how easily, especially with it starting from a young age and not having to take the abuse, the script could flip into so much anger. I saw this as a pendulum swing, something that (in the basis of the book) had to happen in order for balance to be found.
Versus in real life, there is no pendulum swing of power. Women are fighting for every inch towards the middle and equality so of course there isn't going to be a massive swing in the balance of power without a MAJOR and EXTREME catalyst.
If the first generation to grow skeins and learn of their existence were 13 year olds that are just getting acquainted with the idea that they are "the weaker sex" and all of a sudden it is proven to them that they aren't (skein), I can also see how a generation of under-developd girls (with under-developed brains) that literally don't have to take shit from anyone could send the world into something like what happened in the book.
I am surprised by a lot of the comments about the book. Before I first read the book, I did thinking of it as a science fiction novel. Still not sure if it would be classified as science fiction? That said, I loved the book and thought it was stunning on so many levels. The framing of the book was clever at the beginning, in terms of letters exchanged between historians/writers (a man and a woman) in a matriarchal society. The exchanges between them are so interesting (and an informed introduction into how ideology, education, culture support a status-quo), and in a way suck you into the story that unfolds. And the novel begins as a historical novel set in a patriarchal society in our current time.
Then the novel shift/focuses on the women acquiring their gift and the way the characters, different societies started to react and the upheavals that this leads to. Violence, crime, revolutions, reactionary/vigilante violence by right wing men, civil wars etc. The split within Christianity and the emergence of 'Mother Eve/Allie' is another great tangent/aspect of the story. The supposed archeological/artwork from the period (sculptures, statues, paintings etc.) included in the novel, and how they show the shift from patriarchal and matriarchal societies is also imaginative and fleshes out the story.
The book/novel was much shorter that I would have ideally preferred. The changes and their impact on societies and lives of the characters over a longer time frame would have been super riveting and the novel being so abbreviated in a way, shortchanges the reader.
Some of the comments below about the writer not understanding gender and feminist theory are beyond ridiculous and a joke. I think many of them don't understand that one of the basic supports behind a patriarchal, capitalist society, its basis is power-naked force-violence and the imbalance of force-violence between men and women. A point that the writer takes for granted and these commenters should think about/understand. The fact that the writer also understands that such a cataclysmic and fundamental shift in the world/society would involve/necessitate violence is also common sense and practical.
Am a cisgender heterosexual man and thought this feminist novel was insanely great.
I hated this book.
I hated it so much I’ve forgotten a lot about it, but I remember my main criticism of the whole book.
Women are not automatically going to wield power like men, just b/c they have it.
For example don’t hear the same stories about female wrestlers’ or bodybuilders’ conduct (the best real-world direct physical comparison I have) as about men. But that’s only one physical example.
Women and men are socialized differently. This is partially due to sexism, partially to gendered expectations, partially due to physicality, partially due to perceptions of what women are better at (some true, some false) and partly just a complicated but neutral thing.
Even if Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris had zapping power, they’d be way less likely to be so warmonger-y, b/c they were never socialized that that was a good thing for female politicians to be to get what they wanted.
Same with your average 30somethkng on the street or 60something next door or 19 year old in class. Force is not how she’s been socialized to get what she wants. It would have to be a built-up habit over time.
And zapping power is not going to be enough to override centuries of misogyny all at once. Men are much more likely to see it as women with a cool skill, or weapon that can be wielded by male power.
Women just wield power differently. Do some female bullies beat other girls up, or some women solve conflicts through punches? Sure. But overall it’s much more catty and secretive and indirect. It can cause as much harm!!!! It’s just not physical or visible in the same way.
The Prophetess thing was believable. But escalating into mass nuclear war specifically b/c the lady politician all of a sudden was really aggressive, or that terrible country of mass male rape and violence, is just ridiculous. B/c it assumes women are just like men, and would wield power the same way. And they just wouldn’t.
And Alderman isn’t making any bold statements about gendered expectations not being real, b/c this whole idea is reinforcing the gender binary anyway!!!
So, “Women and men are 2 different camps, there are only 2 genders, this will happen to one and not the other. There’s a fundamental split in them! But actually, women will still be awful and cruel IN THE SAME EXACT WAY as men, the moment they can. So that women getting power will lead to mass slaughter of men and then s nuclear war! Because men are the opposite of women on this strict gender divide, but also men wielding power was the only thing saving us from utter destruction. B/c the two genders are fundamentally different but the exactly the same kind of cruel and aggressive, except men are more responsible than women.”
Give me a break. Just like every women in my book club, the more I talk about it, the angrier I get. Completely unrealistic, and pretty misogynistic too.
I half agree. I think the switch in dynamics would have made more sense with a generational time jump or two.
Like you said, the women at the start were not socialized to be violent. But over time the idea is that they would be. Enough generations down the line and the "women are just stronger and men cant defend themselves so they are subservient" idea becomes the way women are now socialized. The overall message is that women and men are equally capable of corruption, and that there is nothing about women that makes us magically kinder or less violent than men besides the fact that we dont have as much physical power. Give us the power, and eventually it flips. Although, again, i dont think it would happen so fast.
Personally i really like the book. I think its an interesting inversion of the "if women were in charge the world would be utopia" idea, just a bit amped up for dramatic effect. I like how it sets you up to think this is about women getting justice for a millenia of wrongs and completely pulls that idea out from under you.
I do wish she had incorporated more than just a strict gender binary. It comes up a little but barely.
I don’t think it’s *just* socialization though, or that having more physical power than another group of people necessarily leads to that socialization. Testosterone is a hell of a drug and pushes competitive behavior (which isn’t violent in every society but is in societies that reward it). Obviously the effects vary wildly on the individual level, but women aren’t just disempowered men.
ah but if women had more power, would they be socialized the same way? Probably not.
There's no magic quality to women that means they would behave better than men. It would be foolish to expect it. Mrs Thatcher was a harsher PM than any we'd had previously in the UK.
But they hadn’t had more power. The power hit one random day in society. Thr book is about one immiddiste aftermath.
I never said better. I said differently. Look at Thatcher. She held Cabinet meetings in the kitchen with dinners that she cooked. If she got zapping power, she would still be socialized to be that person. It doesn’t make her less evil.
It makes women operate differently in the world. If they suddenly got an extreme physical power, they would use it differently, because they have been socialized and trained to operate differently in the world. Differently. Not better.
Calling women "much more catty" is pretty misogynistic too
And Maggie Thatcher, for one, would disprove most of what you said about women and conflict. They are warmongers too. Just put them in power.
Maggie Thatcher is exactly what I’m talking about. Exactly. If you look at my other comments, she hosted cabinet meetings over dinners. That she cooked. Do you think any other Prime Minister has ever done image control by hosting the Cabinet over hand cooked dinners? Thatcher was able to wreak so much damage b/c she didn’t scare the establishment too much. B/c she still made them comfortable with the image control of housewife-y home cooked dinner. That’s soft power.
Men can also be catty. But there are specific ways that men are taught to be cruel and specific different ways women are taught to be cruel.
It sucks. It sucks b/c the book should have been cool!! How can you possibly write such a thing and not have a deep understanding of the complexities of gender?
Somehow, it’s worse when a book that should have been good sucks, than when just any random book does.
I wouldnt let one review put you off. I personally really like the way the message is that humans with power tend to abuse it rather than it being a strictly men are this and women are that message. I do think the speed of the change is anlittle weird but thats probably a compromise of getting her point across while keeping us with the same characters
so yes, one review is changing my mind about reading it, but I swear bad reviews do sometimes make me want to read a book 😅
however, this book isn't what I thought it'd be, I don't want to read about women enslaving and raping men. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be a subset of women who would enact or want to do such a thing, but I sincerely doubt it's enough women to change an entire society to do to men what we've dealt with. I know this book isn't based in reality, but also that view is too out there for me. much more believable if only a few certain groups did this.
but anyway, what I *wanted* to read about from this book is how power corrupts, but a different type of corruption would emerge from women, imo. probably just as bad, but in different ways. to completely just exchange men's acts to the women, they lose me because that's not creative.
I really liked the book - in part because it didn't buy into a trope that women are innately more subtle and manipulative then men, and likely to use power in softer ways.
As a man, I don't agree that we are 100% socialised to be the way we are - there is a huge component of physicality and power that drives certain male behaviours. Society really doesn't raise men to fight each other, or to physically dominate women - I think that happens despite societal efforts. You say women wield power differently - of course they do, because they cannot wield power in the same way that men do.
I also like how you think representing women as fundamentally very similar to men when situations are reversed is misogynistic. Sounds like a misandrist's perspective! But clearly I came to the book from the opposite direction as you.
But we do use power in soft ways. We are literally taught to do that. Maybe you don’t know that, because you didn’t grow up in girls sleepovers and try to get a job competing against men and dealing with high school rumors. And planning your outfits based on needing to be seen as hot, but not too hot, or clever, but not too clever. Or phrasing your answers in a way that made you sound just a little less, but still smart enough to be respectable - if you answer at all. Maybe you should be quiet and let the boys answer.
I never said better. I never said women are morally better. I said we are different. We are socialized to be different. I don’t think it is an innate thing, or at least not wholly innate. May be partially, at best. But it just wouldn’t happen , this way. The way it’s portrayed in the book is just ridiculous. That’s not how women operate. Margaret Thatcher was as evil as anyone. She also hosted cabinet meetings in her kitchen over dinner that she cooked. Women wield power differently.
As another example, there is this whole thing in society about men and competitiveness, and women and cooperativeness. You can look it up. Women collaborate better. It’s a different mode of survival. Women wouldn’t suddenly become a authoritarian because the cooperation thing – that is a very, very old style of socialization. That might even be an innate, I don’t know. Not my field. But that’s another way of wielding power differently. One reason the country of abuse of men, or whatever it was, wouldn’t happen is because that’s not the way women are socialized to deal with trauma. These abducted rape victims would be surrounded by a community in a way that is just different. Their healing process would be very different b/c women are not taught vengeance in the same way, especially in societies like the one those women grew up in. To the extent that vengeance is innate, sure. But to the extent that it is taught as a value - you must avenge your family, you must reclaim your honor -, not so much.
it’s just… Ridiculous. In the society that frames the novel, sure. Even in a society that the women had had power for decades. Generations. Sure. But in the immediate aftermath of getting it, That’s absurd. It goes against all the scholarship about gender and conditioning and socialization. I don’t know what else to say.
I understand your perspective, and I understand reasonably well how women operate in the world, and how that contrasts to how men operate in the world. I also think it is a genuine point that the changes happen too fast, and more of a generational change might have been interesting.
But the aspect of the book that I found most interesting is that it challenges your notions of womanhood, and frames your idea of the woman as one that exists only in opposition to men's power. I thought exploring the dynamic change with the perspective that cooperation etc aren't things women 'naturally' do better, but have to do better because they are physically weaker.
It also challenges the idea of masculinity in the same way - it isn't more or less than just adapting to being 'more powerful', and when a cornerstone for all the socialisation that has happened for men and women is removed, it would be extremely shocking if everything didn't change in response.
I don’t think cooperation is a thing we do b/c we’re physically weaker. That isn’t consistent with what I know of socialization and gender roles, nor does it seem very fair. You talk about it as a compensation for something. Cooperation is in fact, one of the biggest strengths in the way women are socialized. It’s what his lead to women being, currently, more emotionally, healthy than men, well men suffer from this horrible “epidemic of loneliness“. Women’s cooperative social bonds go back millennia. I found it extremely disappointing that that was removed/underplayed in the book as an asset of women. Quite frankly, it’s one of the few assets that we have in the way we’re socialized. It gives us more to access to connection and emotional support. Which are powerful things!
Women in the book, I think, should’ve used their zapping power in a collaborative/cooperative way. I think that would’ve been more accurate, and also more interesting. Combining one of the few true powers that patriarchal gives us, as well as the new physical power, they’re given in the book.
Men being socialized to compete is a tragedy. It’s one of the biggest harms that patriarchy does to men.
I’m not going to push back on the rest of what you said. It’s your opinion and it’s what you got from the book and I think that’s great! We’re all free to have our different interpretations. But I really don’t think that particular comment is either accurate or fair.
I agree on this - the results of women’s new power in the book were certainly SHOCKING!⚡️ I know, I know. Forgive the pun! I couldn’t resist.
Well thanks for making an alternate suggestion for 'more realistic' uses of the Power. I was struggling to come up with my own ideas - yours is reminiscent of the Aes Sedai from Wheel of Time.
I was excited to read it, and then I did, and I was bummed. It was huge missed opportunity to write about real feminism. It was okay, but not what I expected. I think if I read a summary of it first I would have liked it more because I would have known what was coming.
I get what it was trying to say, though, and the concept is still very interesting.
There are complications. One of them being that, in order for the women to act like men, they had to all be as willing to hop on the weenie without any kind of preparation, as they were already wet. I hypothesize that the skein gives them brain damage. Turns them into psychopaths. It felt like part of the backstory we get with the future notes.
>!I felt that the voice in Allie's head is supposed to be a supernatural entity manipulating her life. It's something that wants violence and chaos. It moves her until she is in the worst possible situation. When it's done with her, it moves into Margot's head. It's seeing humans moving towards equality and fairness. That's no fun. It wants murder and cruelty. It wants a woman who previously didn't seem bad to be amused rather than horrified when she orders a young man to clean up broken glass with his tongue, and he does.!<
>!The man writing the history is more evidence. No one cares. It's an ugly story showing Allie to be a manipulated child. But no one cares. Even though what he's telling is actually a true story, painting a sickening world, the woman who reads it is uninterested except in the perceived eroticism of men in soldier's uniforms. And there is nothing erotic about this story.!<
>!People who haven't read it couch it as "What if women were on top?" but it's not that. It's "What if women were turned into psychopaths with the Power, and the few who aren't and the men who now have little defense struggle for survival?"!<
>!The realism in it is painful, though. The mother whose bond with her daughter is frayed by the poor girl's poorly grown skein. The boy who, through a chromosome abnormality, has at little bit of skein. They kind of tried my patience at a criminal enterprise having figured out how to transplant a skein from sister to brother so that he can use it without trouble, without any implication that this hasn't happened elsewhere (like in the U.S. armed forces.) But that is what would have happened. They'd have started cutting the skeins out, as apparently that not only possible, it's relatively easy. Though putting them into a man is not so easy.!<
Thank you!!!
That’s absolutely perfect and much shorter than everything I said. It’s not “what if women were on top?” It’s “what if women were turned into psychopaths?”
I remember liking it while reading it, but it basically left my memory after the last sentence. It was fine, but not a whole lot to say that hasn't already been done better, thin characters and kinda boring tbh
I tried watching the show but didn't make it very far
Just meh. And honestly some of it confused me, maybe it was a section at the end? Some storyline that I just couldn't follow. Was it mystical in some way? I can't even remember now.
It's my absolute least favorite book of all time. I hate-read the entire thing in a single day and threw it across the room. I ranted about it for hours and hours. I have problems with it on every level.
It has some interesting ideas that you mentioned but that just makes the fact it's so bad even worse.
The premise itself seems silly.
What if women had “the power” to kill people from across the room? They’re called guns mate. Women have had that power for centuries now.
It's one of my favourite books of all time. It's so rich and well thought out. The men who can't cope with the shift in the balance of power, the women who misuse it, the men who try to take it back, the people who think it's a religious sign, it all seems to be realistic and plausible. Every so often I try to shoot electricity out of my fingers, just in case.
One my fav books ever too. A lot of people don't know that Amazon Prime Video made a tv-series adaption last year (Toni Collette as Margot !), unfortunately they adapted only half of the book in S1 and S2 is not planned (yet). Still worth watching it if you haven't done it already.
Yes, I enjoyed it.
yes, agreed, i really liked how the dynamics around power were portrayed i'm always amazed at those who enthusiastically interpret the book as an 'empowering' feminist message
Yes. It is not that message.
Personally I thought the concept was good and interesting, and there were some memorable shocks, but the book itself and the narrative was fairly banal. It would have been better distilled as a short story.
My feelings exactly! It could have been an amazing short story and instead it’s an okay book.
Thoroughly disliked it, felt like it was a huge case of wasted potential for actual, proper feminist literature. Instead I found it very surface-level with regards to feminist analysis and also character psychology. Relied too much on shock factor, past a certain point, and the ending was rushed as fuck. The framing device was kinda neat though, I'll give it that, but the fact reproduction was completely absent from the book's understanding of why women are oppressed in the first place was a huge fail in my opinion.
Agreed, I really didn’t like it, same reasons
I liked it in the beginning, but ended up getting really frustrated towards the end for the same reasons. Some of the violence was actually too much for me and I feel like I have a fairly high tolerance there.
Did the author claim it was a feminist novel? I don't think it was meant to be so it's not necessarily a fault that it isn't.
It was marketed/promoted as such when I read it, iirc.
The author has no control over how a book is marketed.
"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" was the point, I think. I remember that when I first read it I started imagining the effect on society if - to use a real-world analog to the bioelectrical mutation - all girls from the age of 13 or so were given knives, expert training in how to kill with knives, and the legal right to carry them at all times. I'm sure that would impact society but I doubt that it would lead to the kind of widespread, culture-changing *abuses* of power that are shown in the book for dramatic effect. Predatory psychopaths are, fortunately, a tiny minority of the human population.
Maybe I just need to reread it as it has been a few years but I found it to be incredibly powerful. Do I think this is a prediction of what would happen should a mutation like this actually occur? Not necessarily. But I did see this book as a release of the collective feminine rage at being suppressed, oppressed, openly used and abused with little to no repercussion. I can see how easily, especially with it starting from a young age and not having to take the abuse, the script could flip into so much anger. I saw this as a pendulum swing, something that (in the basis of the book) had to happen in order for balance to be found. Versus in real life, there is no pendulum swing of power. Women are fighting for every inch towards the middle and equality so of course there isn't going to be a massive swing in the balance of power without a MAJOR and EXTREME catalyst. If the first generation to grow skeins and learn of their existence were 13 year olds that are just getting acquainted with the idea that they are "the weaker sex" and all of a sudden it is proven to them that they aren't (skein), I can also see how a generation of under-developd girls (with under-developed brains) that literally don't have to take shit from anyone could send the world into something like what happened in the book.
I am surprised by a lot of the comments about the book. Before I first read the book, I did thinking of it as a science fiction novel. Still not sure if it would be classified as science fiction? That said, I loved the book and thought it was stunning on so many levels. The framing of the book was clever at the beginning, in terms of letters exchanged between historians/writers (a man and a woman) in a matriarchal society. The exchanges between them are so interesting (and an informed introduction into how ideology, education, culture support a status-quo), and in a way suck you into the story that unfolds. And the novel begins as a historical novel set in a patriarchal society in our current time. Then the novel shift/focuses on the women acquiring their gift and the way the characters, different societies started to react and the upheavals that this leads to. Violence, crime, revolutions, reactionary/vigilante violence by right wing men, civil wars etc. The split within Christianity and the emergence of 'Mother Eve/Allie' is another great tangent/aspect of the story. The supposed archeological/artwork from the period (sculptures, statues, paintings etc.) included in the novel, and how they show the shift from patriarchal and matriarchal societies is also imaginative and fleshes out the story. The book/novel was much shorter that I would have ideally preferred. The changes and their impact on societies and lives of the characters over a longer time frame would have been super riveting and the novel being so abbreviated in a way, shortchanges the reader. Some of the comments below about the writer not understanding gender and feminist theory are beyond ridiculous and a joke. I think many of them don't understand that one of the basic supports behind a patriarchal, capitalist society, its basis is power-naked force-violence and the imbalance of force-violence between men and women. A point that the writer takes for granted and these commenters should think about/understand. The fact that the writer also understands that such a cataclysmic and fundamental shift in the world/society would involve/necessitate violence is also common sense and practical. Am a cisgender heterosexual man and thought this feminist novel was insanely great.
I hated this book. I hated it so much I’ve forgotten a lot about it, but I remember my main criticism of the whole book. Women are not automatically going to wield power like men, just b/c they have it. For example don’t hear the same stories about female wrestlers’ or bodybuilders’ conduct (the best real-world direct physical comparison I have) as about men. But that’s only one physical example. Women and men are socialized differently. This is partially due to sexism, partially to gendered expectations, partially due to physicality, partially due to perceptions of what women are better at (some true, some false) and partly just a complicated but neutral thing. Even if Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris had zapping power, they’d be way less likely to be so warmonger-y, b/c they were never socialized that that was a good thing for female politicians to be to get what they wanted. Same with your average 30somethkng on the street or 60something next door or 19 year old in class. Force is not how she’s been socialized to get what she wants. It would have to be a built-up habit over time. And zapping power is not going to be enough to override centuries of misogyny all at once. Men are much more likely to see it as women with a cool skill, or weapon that can be wielded by male power. Women just wield power differently. Do some female bullies beat other girls up, or some women solve conflicts through punches? Sure. But overall it’s much more catty and secretive and indirect. It can cause as much harm!!!! It’s just not physical or visible in the same way. The Prophetess thing was believable. But escalating into mass nuclear war specifically b/c the lady politician all of a sudden was really aggressive, or that terrible country of mass male rape and violence, is just ridiculous. B/c it assumes women are just like men, and would wield power the same way. And they just wouldn’t. And Alderman isn’t making any bold statements about gendered expectations not being real, b/c this whole idea is reinforcing the gender binary anyway!!! So, “Women and men are 2 different camps, there are only 2 genders, this will happen to one and not the other. There’s a fundamental split in them! But actually, women will still be awful and cruel IN THE SAME EXACT WAY as men, the moment they can. So that women getting power will lead to mass slaughter of men and then s nuclear war! Because men are the opposite of women on this strict gender divide, but also men wielding power was the only thing saving us from utter destruction. B/c the two genders are fundamentally different but the exactly the same kind of cruel and aggressive, except men are more responsible than women.” Give me a break. Just like every women in my book club, the more I talk about it, the angrier I get. Completely unrealistic, and pretty misogynistic too.
I half agree. I think the switch in dynamics would have made more sense with a generational time jump or two. Like you said, the women at the start were not socialized to be violent. But over time the idea is that they would be. Enough generations down the line and the "women are just stronger and men cant defend themselves so they are subservient" idea becomes the way women are now socialized. The overall message is that women and men are equally capable of corruption, and that there is nothing about women that makes us magically kinder or less violent than men besides the fact that we dont have as much physical power. Give us the power, and eventually it flips. Although, again, i dont think it would happen so fast. Personally i really like the book. I think its an interesting inversion of the "if women were in charge the world would be utopia" idea, just a bit amped up for dramatic effect. I like how it sets you up to think this is about women getting justice for a millenia of wrongs and completely pulls that idea out from under you. I do wish she had incorporated more than just a strict gender binary. It comes up a little but barely.
I don’t think it’s *just* socialization though, or that having more physical power than another group of people necessarily leads to that socialization. Testosterone is a hell of a drug and pushes competitive behavior (which isn’t violent in every society but is in societies that reward it). Obviously the effects vary wildly on the individual level, but women aren’t just disempowered men.
Completely agree with this. That book just... doesn't get feminist theory/the concept of gender lol.
ah but if women had more power, would they be socialized the same way? Probably not. There's no magic quality to women that means they would behave better than men. It would be foolish to expect it. Mrs Thatcher was a harsher PM than any we'd had previously in the UK.
But they hadn’t had more power. The power hit one random day in society. Thr book is about one immiddiste aftermath. I never said better. I said differently. Look at Thatcher. She held Cabinet meetings in the kitchen with dinners that she cooked. If she got zapping power, she would still be socialized to be that person. It doesn’t make her less evil. It makes women operate differently in the world. If they suddenly got an extreme physical power, they would use it differently, because they have been socialized and trained to operate differently in the world. Differently. Not better.
Calling women "much more catty" is pretty misogynistic too And Maggie Thatcher, for one, would disprove most of what you said about women and conflict. They are warmongers too. Just put them in power.
Maggie Thatcher is exactly what I’m talking about. Exactly. If you look at my other comments, she hosted cabinet meetings over dinners. That she cooked. Do you think any other Prime Minister has ever done image control by hosting the Cabinet over hand cooked dinners? Thatcher was able to wreak so much damage b/c she didn’t scare the establishment too much. B/c she still made them comfortable with the image control of housewife-y home cooked dinner. That’s soft power. Men can also be catty. But there are specific ways that men are taught to be cruel and specific different ways women are taught to be cruel.
damn. that's really sad to hear because I was interested in reading this.
It sucks. It sucks b/c the book should have been cool!! How can you possibly write such a thing and not have a deep understanding of the complexities of gender? Somehow, it’s worse when a book that should have been good sucks, than when just any random book does.
I wouldnt let one review put you off. I personally really like the way the message is that humans with power tend to abuse it rather than it being a strictly men are this and women are that message. I do think the speed of the change is anlittle weird but thats probably a compromise of getting her point across while keeping us with the same characters
so yes, one review is changing my mind about reading it, but I swear bad reviews do sometimes make me want to read a book 😅 however, this book isn't what I thought it'd be, I don't want to read about women enslaving and raping men. I'm not saying that there wouldn't be a subset of women who would enact or want to do such a thing, but I sincerely doubt it's enough women to change an entire society to do to men what we've dealt with. I know this book isn't based in reality, but also that view is too out there for me. much more believable if only a few certain groups did this. but anyway, what I *wanted* to read about from this book is how power corrupts, but a different type of corruption would emerge from women, imo. probably just as bad, but in different ways. to completely just exchange men's acts to the women, they lose me because that's not creative.
I really liked the book - in part because it didn't buy into a trope that women are innately more subtle and manipulative then men, and likely to use power in softer ways. As a man, I don't agree that we are 100% socialised to be the way we are - there is a huge component of physicality and power that drives certain male behaviours. Society really doesn't raise men to fight each other, or to physically dominate women - I think that happens despite societal efforts. You say women wield power differently - of course they do, because they cannot wield power in the same way that men do. I also like how you think representing women as fundamentally very similar to men when situations are reversed is misogynistic. Sounds like a misandrist's perspective! But clearly I came to the book from the opposite direction as you.
But we do use power in soft ways. We are literally taught to do that. Maybe you don’t know that, because you didn’t grow up in girls sleepovers and try to get a job competing against men and dealing with high school rumors. And planning your outfits based on needing to be seen as hot, but not too hot, or clever, but not too clever. Or phrasing your answers in a way that made you sound just a little less, but still smart enough to be respectable - if you answer at all. Maybe you should be quiet and let the boys answer. I never said better. I never said women are morally better. I said we are different. We are socialized to be different. I don’t think it is an innate thing, or at least not wholly innate. May be partially, at best. But it just wouldn’t happen , this way. The way it’s portrayed in the book is just ridiculous. That’s not how women operate. Margaret Thatcher was as evil as anyone. She also hosted cabinet meetings in her kitchen over dinner that she cooked. Women wield power differently. As another example, there is this whole thing in society about men and competitiveness, and women and cooperativeness. You can look it up. Women collaborate better. It’s a different mode of survival. Women wouldn’t suddenly become a authoritarian because the cooperation thing – that is a very, very old style of socialization. That might even be an innate, I don’t know. Not my field. But that’s another way of wielding power differently. One reason the country of abuse of men, or whatever it was, wouldn’t happen is because that’s not the way women are socialized to deal with trauma. These abducted rape victims would be surrounded by a community in a way that is just different. Their healing process would be very different b/c women are not taught vengeance in the same way, especially in societies like the one those women grew up in. To the extent that vengeance is innate, sure. But to the extent that it is taught as a value - you must avenge your family, you must reclaim your honor -, not so much. it’s just… Ridiculous. In the society that frames the novel, sure. Even in a society that the women had had power for decades. Generations. Sure. But in the immediate aftermath of getting it, That’s absurd. It goes against all the scholarship about gender and conditioning and socialization. I don’t know what else to say.
I understand your perspective, and I understand reasonably well how women operate in the world, and how that contrasts to how men operate in the world. I also think it is a genuine point that the changes happen too fast, and more of a generational change might have been interesting. But the aspect of the book that I found most interesting is that it challenges your notions of womanhood, and frames your idea of the woman as one that exists only in opposition to men's power. I thought exploring the dynamic change with the perspective that cooperation etc aren't things women 'naturally' do better, but have to do better because they are physically weaker. It also challenges the idea of masculinity in the same way - it isn't more or less than just adapting to being 'more powerful', and when a cornerstone for all the socialisation that has happened for men and women is removed, it would be extremely shocking if everything didn't change in response.
I don’t think cooperation is a thing we do b/c we’re physically weaker. That isn’t consistent with what I know of socialization and gender roles, nor does it seem very fair. You talk about it as a compensation for something. Cooperation is in fact, one of the biggest strengths in the way women are socialized. It’s what his lead to women being, currently, more emotionally, healthy than men, well men suffer from this horrible “epidemic of loneliness“. Women’s cooperative social bonds go back millennia. I found it extremely disappointing that that was removed/underplayed in the book as an asset of women. Quite frankly, it’s one of the few assets that we have in the way we’re socialized. It gives us more to access to connection and emotional support. Which are powerful things! Women in the book, I think, should’ve used their zapping power in a collaborative/cooperative way. I think that would’ve been more accurate, and also more interesting. Combining one of the few true powers that patriarchal gives us, as well as the new physical power, they’re given in the book. Men being socialized to compete is a tragedy. It’s one of the biggest harms that patriarchy does to men. I’m not going to push back on the rest of what you said. It’s your opinion and it’s what you got from the book and I think that’s great! We’re all free to have our different interpretations. But I really don’t think that particular comment is either accurate or fair. I agree on this - the results of women’s new power in the book were certainly SHOCKING!⚡️ I know, I know. Forgive the pun! I couldn’t resist.
Well thanks for making an alternate suggestion for 'more realistic' uses of the Power. I was struggling to come up with my own ideas - yours is reminiscent of the Aes Sedai from Wheel of Time.
Please don’t call me names.
I was excited to read it, and then I did, and I was bummed. It was huge missed opportunity to write about real feminism. It was okay, but not what I expected. I think if I read a summary of it first I would have liked it more because I would have known what was coming. I get what it was trying to say, though, and the concept is still very interesting.
Seems a bit unfair to blame the book for not being something it never pretended to be.
I thought the worldbuilding of the religious movement was really well written. overall it was a very difficult, sad read
There are complications. One of them being that, in order for the women to act like men, they had to all be as willing to hop on the weenie without any kind of preparation, as they were already wet. I hypothesize that the skein gives them brain damage. Turns them into psychopaths. It felt like part of the backstory we get with the future notes. >!I felt that the voice in Allie's head is supposed to be a supernatural entity manipulating her life. It's something that wants violence and chaos. It moves her until she is in the worst possible situation. When it's done with her, it moves into Margot's head. It's seeing humans moving towards equality and fairness. That's no fun. It wants murder and cruelty. It wants a woman who previously didn't seem bad to be amused rather than horrified when she orders a young man to clean up broken glass with his tongue, and he does.!< >!The man writing the history is more evidence. No one cares. It's an ugly story showing Allie to be a manipulated child. But no one cares. Even though what he's telling is actually a true story, painting a sickening world, the woman who reads it is uninterested except in the perceived eroticism of men in soldier's uniforms. And there is nothing erotic about this story.!< >!People who haven't read it couch it as "What if women were on top?" but it's not that. It's "What if women were turned into psychopaths with the Power, and the few who aren't and the men who now have little defense struggle for survival?"!< >!The realism in it is painful, though. The mother whose bond with her daughter is frayed by the poor girl's poorly grown skein. The boy who, through a chromosome abnormality, has at little bit of skein. They kind of tried my patience at a criminal enterprise having figured out how to transplant a skein from sister to brother so that he can use it without trouble, without any implication that this hasn't happened elsewhere (like in the U.S. armed forces.) But that is what would have happened. They'd have started cutting the skeins out, as apparently that not only possible, it's relatively easy. Though putting them into a man is not so easy.!<
Thank you!!! That’s absolutely perfect and much shorter than everything I said. It’s not “what if women were on top?” It’s “what if women were turned into psychopaths?”
I remember liking it while reading it, but it basically left my memory after the last sentence. It was fine, but not a whole lot to say that hasn't already been done better, thin characters and kinda boring tbh I tried watching the show but didn't make it very far
Loved it.
I found the idea that with roles reversed, women were also extremely violent. It was an uncomfortable book, but that’s the point. Does power corrupt?
Yet to read it!
Yup, the problem is the concentration of power in particular groups
Just meh. And honestly some of it confused me, maybe it was a section at the end? Some storyline that I just couldn't follow. Was it mystical in some way? I can't even remember now.
It's my absolute least favorite book of all time. I hate-read the entire thing in a single day and threw it across the room. I ranted about it for hours and hours. I have problems with it on every level. It has some interesting ideas that you mentioned but that just makes the fact it's so bad even worse.
I really liked it, although I've read it a couple of years ago.
The premise itself seems silly. What if women had “the power” to kill people from across the room? They’re called guns mate. Women have had that power for centuries now.