Rowan Bell

Others have accused this book of being anti-feminist, or of being man-hating. It's not. Alderman is not endorsing the cruel and brutal events in this book. Instead, she is critiquing the idea that men and women are inherently different, that men are somehow more violent or brutal or sexually aggressive and women are somehow more passive or gentle or kind. But maybe men do violent and brutal and sexually aggressive things not because they are men, but because they can; because they have power. We've never seen a world where women had the kind of power that men currently have. And we already know that women can do horrible, brutal, cruel things. If women were in charge, maybe the world wouldn't be a better one, it would just be an inverted one. There a radical feminist message here. The message is this: Women are not better than men. Men are not better than women. But men have unjust power over women, and that shapes the characters of both men and women. This message is horrifyingly well expressed in this novel. Read it.