The Power

by Naomi Alderman

“Show me.” Jos narrows her eyes. “I can’t…I’d hurt you.” “Have you been practicing? Can you control it well enough so you know you wouldn’t kill me, or give me a fit?” Jos takes a deep breath. Puffs her cheeks out. Lets the breath out slowly. “Yes.”

This convo gives me a sense of comradeship with the mother, the way she understands that there are things she doesn't understand about her child but she's open to them anyway.

There’ll be an injection within a year or two to stop this thing happening and then we’ll all go back to normal.

Normal being, female submission.

“It’s statewide mandatory testing for the presence of a skein, or the electrostatic power.”

Any woman who can’t stop herself from discharging under this mild pressure is a danger to herself, a danger, yes, to society.

She's not necessarily in the wrong thought, that this test could be used to assess the women who can't control themselves for the sake of society's safety. But the use of this technology is so easy to manipulate and use as a form of discrimination.