![]() And while Alderman explores some of the complications of this development with a minor character who is intersex, at no point does she look at what it would mean for the trans community. Alderman’s power only affects people with two X chromosomes. What if every woman were to suddenly develop the ability to emit electric shocks out of her hands, like an electric eel? The central premise of The Power is so simple as to be electrifying. ![]() This first half of The Power works through intense defamiliarization ![]() Here’s how those two stories fit together, and why the effect is so devastating. 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. As the account we are reading becomes increasingly brutal, it stops being a classic women’s empowerment fantasy. ![]() 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?įor the first half of The Power, it seems as though that’s the story Alderman is interested in telling.īut in the second half, The Power changes. There are two stories curled up inside of Naomi Alderman’s The Power, the Vox Book Club’s March pick. The Vox Book Club is linking to to support local and independent booksellers. ![]()
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