Gender, Bodies, and American Christian Nationalism in Naomi Alderman's /The Power

Abstract: Naomi Alderman's The Power (2016) imagines a world in which women develop the ability to deliver powerful electric shocks, reversing gender relations and leading to the establishment of global matriarchy enforced by violence. While the existing scholarship by José M. Yebra and Alyson Miller focuses on the figure of Mother Eve as a critique of global patriarchal religion as well as the relationship between religious and state power in Bessapara, I attend to the often-neglected figure of Margot, a rising American politician. In this paper, I examine the rhetoric surrounding Margot, arguing that Alderman uses Margot to satirize contemporary white evangelical Christianity and its accompanying right-wing political agendas. I explore the historic connections between abstinence-only sex education, patriarchy, and nationalism, analyze the novel's parody of American political rhetoric, compare the depiction of Margot's queer-coded daughter Jocelyn to gay conversion therapy, and examine the .... https://journals.ub.uni-koeln.de/index.php/genderforum/article/view/2556

Object Details

• Location: Deutsche Nationalbibliothek Frankfurt am Main
• Extent: Online-Ressource
• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Gender, Bodies, and American Christian Nationalism in Naomi Alderman's /The Power ; volume:20 ; number:2 [80] ; year:2021 ; Gender forum ; 20, Heft 2 [80] (2021)

Contributors, Places and Time

• Creator: Roschman, Melodie

Further information

• URN: urn:nbn:de:101:1-2411280015064.911556836885
• Rights: Open Access; Der Zugriff auf das Objekt ist unbeschränkt möglich.
• Last update: 15.08.2025, 7:34 AM CEST