Reconstruction of patriarchy through matriarchy: A critique of gendered power structures in Naomi Alderman's The Power

This thesis explores the power dynamics in Naomi Alderman's novel, The Power, built between genders following a power reversal from patriarchy to matriarchy due to women's sudden acquisition of electrical power. The shift in society favouring women is dealt with by focusing on women's representation in religion, the media, and politics. Michel Foucault's theories on power provide the infrastructure for discussing the nature of power throughout this thesis. Louis Althusser's framework of Ideological State Apparatuses (ISAs) and Repressive State Apparatuses (RSAs) helps to describe how certain institutions in The Power perpetuate ideologies and shape matriarchal culture and politics. Kate Millett's ideas on gender and Judith Butler's views on the performativity of gender support the aim of this thesis to highlight the double standards and fragility of gender norms dictated by society. By examining the religious shift, this thesis explores how religion serves as both a tool of empowerment and a means of legitimizing new power structures by granting a superior position to the previously oppressed group. Similarly, the media's role is scrutinized for its pivotal function in shaping public perception and reinforcing the emerging matriarchy. Also, political changes, powerful women's ambitions and the strategic use of females' physical power further demonstrate the complexities of governance in a dystopia reversed in gender dominance. Although Alderman creates a feminist dystopia where women overpower men, she does not suggest that this world is better than the patriarchal one. The author mirrors the current situation of women being oppressed by patriarchy by shifting the receivers of violence and oppression from women to men in her novel. By showing that merely changing the holders of power only perpetuates the cycle of oppression, Alderman reveals the inherent problems with the notion of power.