Is The Power about gender issues or about power?

I am trying to read again and have found it good that I had a repository of impressions I got from books I read previously. Also, Cracked the website (and youtube channel) ended as it was and some of my favourite folks there branched off, notably into Small Beans and Some More News, and there are some book related podcasts from both, although in the former case, Kurt Vonneguys is mainly housed by Cracked. Katy from Some More News started a bookclub called Some More Books and the first book was Naomi Alderman's The Power. So that's how I came to read this book. What follows is adapted from a comment I made on the Some More Books post.


Women across the world start developing the ability to zap people with electricity (superpower style). The upshot of which, is that women now represent the physically dominant half of humankind. The chapters follow the perspective of a few different characters whose stories become interwoven by the end. There's a couple of passing passages that wryly comment on the gender reversal - parents are worried about their boys walking the streets alone, males are now mainly good for eye-candy, the issue of male consent arises and so on, however rather this book feeling like a commentary on gender issues, it is more the idea of power and its ability to corrupt.


The concept of power is explored in parallels with political instability - female militias rape and pillage refugee camps, female dictators become paranoid with their hold on power, laws are passed that suddenly disempower specific groups. I don't think the central tenet of the book is that 'if women had the power, they would act the same as men do today', nor is it just a catharsis or wish for power from Alderman, who could see herself as part of the female underclass (on the latter point, I had commented that some could argue it's a revenge novel, but I hadn't meant to suggest that that was the intention or how it comes across to me). Rather, I think there's a genuine attempt to follow the beginning premise through to reasonable outcomes as well as exploring some different dynamics.


So what is the impact, for the reader, of being confronted with such a world? For me, a unique impression that came through was experiencing abuses of power as a “new thing”. For example, in the gang-rape of a male during the female militia pillage, the experience of the humiliating aspects of rape, the loss of power felt by onlookers, feels new. If it were a parallel scene in a story about an unstable country, I would be disgusted, I would feel horrible, but it wouldn't be anything 'new'. Women perpetrating violence is certainly confronting in a different way. The only thing that stopped me from getting into the book properly was that the characters didn’t really have an arc, set out from the beginning (no goal in a hero’s journey sense). You’re just seeing history (somewhat similar to how I felt with Foundations), and that stopped me from becoming invested in any of them. Aside from Roxy, there’s also not much in the way of compassionate and likable characters - Especially males are all portrayed as pretty horrible, even Tunde is only self-interested - but yearning for likable characters isn't an everyone-thing. I definitely recommend this to people, as part of our continuing education in female perspectives and understanding feminist issues.