This is great, so much truth and a lot to think about. I'm a white man, in my fifties, and I am so sick of white men running just about everything. I have had more than enough! It is long past time to empower women and minorities and get out of their way. While I have inherently benefitted from being a white man in the US whether I tried to or not, I have also suffered at the hands of the white alpha male, who I see as perhaps the single most dangerous figure in the history of humanity. Enough! Back off white men and head to the back of the line for a generation or two so the rest of the planet can catch up; then, perhaps human beings will have a shot at survival.
67
@Yve Eden, you lost me at “women and minorities.” Women make up slightly more than have the population. Do not put us in the same category as any “minority” population. Ever. That is a rhetorical tool of the patriarchy in power.
13
I'm sure it was not intended in that way. He's simply trying to make a point, unfortunately at the expense of his own self respect.
11
A column much needed this week, grazie tanto a Lei, Signora Ferrante. The sound from Alabama this week was from was of men - clueless men - desperate to push women back into a cage. How dare women claim their bodies, their health care, their rights to reproduction? As wth recent voting rights, Alabama is once again a warning bell. (Or should that be a canary in a coal mine.) I'm one man who wants only women to manage the planet, thank you. Brava, Elena!
44
It took me a long time to realize that the reason I often felt underwhelmed by a huge variety of stories (everything from James Bond movies to Paradise Lost, the novels of D.H. Lawrence, and the standard tropes of pornography), as well as alienated by their enormous popularity, was that these stories were male fantasies specifically designed by straight men for the enjoyment of straight men.
The femme fatale. The Older Woman "seductress." The sex goddess. The woman who falsely cries rape. The bimbo. The evil witch, literal or metaphorical, usually old and envious of young and beautiful women. The damsel in distress. The princess for whom the knight proves his worthiness by accomplishing tasks. The psycho ex girlfriend. The Lolita, starting with Nabokov's prototype. Eve, created second, created from a man, the morally weaker person who was more susceptible to temptation, the party at fault for the Fall, and therefore (in this Just So Story) punished -- along with every single woman born afterward -- with mortality and the pain of childbirth. The virgin/whore dichotomy in all its incarnations. The [expletive]-hungry co-ed. The depiction of the sin Lust invariably as female.
These female characters all play a role in stories designed to appeal to straight men. For everyone else, and any straight man enlightened enough to see through and resist the pandering, experiencing these stories is a Does-Not-Compute. It's like looking at a world turned upside down.
37
This nth wave of feminist push towards greater self determination does not operate in a vacuum. The tension between the binaries of male and female are painfully dated and potentially harmful towards any intersectional ideal of harmony between marginalized groups.
Our gender divide feels like a smokescreen obscuring other more incendiary differences that persist in wrenching us apart. Economic, social, religious, racial ideological and political to name a few. The "tribalization" of women continues at the hands of women which might help explain why successive waves of feminism renounce their predecessors.
6
Sounds on-target to me. I'd like to hear more.
3
I'm a woman and a feminist, and have no problem at all with literature courses and libraries containing works primarily by men. Why? Because for most of human history, women have been relegated to the role of bearing, nursing, and rearing children. Women were not given the education, until very recently, to produce large numbers of great writers from their ranks. (Some women were able to break free of the bonds of domesticity and get published, but relatively few.) Men have had the freedom and education for centuries to be able to write and produce art, and have done so in far greater numbers. Thus, if we are going to preserve the great works of art of the past, they will by definition be almost primarily by men. And so what? Great art is great art, whether by men or women.
Let's say we demand that libraries contain works from each century with an equal number of male and female authors. If we are going to include 1,000 works by men from the 1600's, say, then we must also include 1,000 works by women from the 1600's. I can promise you that, simply because the pool of female writers was tiny and the pool of male writers was large, the works by the women would, on the whole, be of inferior quality. Is that what you want?
That said, any curator of modern works--say, 1970's on--who does not include fairly equal numbers of male and female writers and artists is just sexist, ignorant, or both.
Elena Ferrante, you need to study history. We can't look for sexism everywhere.
24
I acutely understand what Ms. Ferrante, a noted and "brilliant" writer herself, is saying. I also hope it'll inspire more women to write. As women we are constantly existing in male-dominated worlds, whether familial, literary or political. This direct, assertive. pervasive power defines our female existence and creates pressure for us to conform in order to succeed or at least be accepted and survive. As another excellent woman writer noted, namely Simone de Beauvoir, women are the constant "Other" to man, while He is the familiar and accepted Self. This is how we are viewed. Thus, Ms. Ferrante is right to note this power imbalance and complex psychological reality and also right to call for a transformation. Regardless of the many exceptions, our history, literary and otherwise, has been marked, defined and interpreted by men and the perspectives of men. There are outstanding historic female writers-- but we cannot deny the fact, that they remain relatively underrepresented. Male writers have been more influential and certainly more recognized. But despite this, like Ms. Ferrante said, women must now create and narrate the "unapologetic" female story. We are all waiting.
13
Humans cannot handle power. The true wisdom comes in knowing to turn down power when it is offered to you and not seeking to have power over other humans in particular. Having some power over your environment (excluding humans) seems unavoidable but even that can be minimised. Avoiding power is the best way to live - for me it has brought the most contentment, happiness, and joy.
6
Dear Ms. Ferrante,
Let us not underestimate the power of the slow-motion explosion of female novelists to set the world spinning in a different direction. It is often rightly said that people of influence are often unknowingly under the spell of some ancient economist’s ideas, and I believe it’s even more rightly said that people of cultural influence are and ought to be under the spell of some novelist ancient or modern, and with such as yourself and Cusk and Kushner and Slimani and Newberger-Goldstein and countless others now in the ether, change is inevitable.
Cordially,
S.A. Traina
7
Women have successfully told their story and garnered enough power to influence the political and cultural direction of this country. Voting or even working outside the home was unimaginable to a woman born 150 years ago. Our politics and culture have changed for the better due to the participation of women.
On the other hand, the presence of women at the highest levels of business and corporate management has had no impact on the economic system. It's foolish to believe there will be any major changes at GM because of Mary Barra or at Facebook because of Sheryl Sandberg. Just like the men before them, they are fulfilling institutional roles that obligate them to increase profit and maximize market share. Nothing of substance changes. The power system remains intact.
15
Second sentence: "There is no person or group or sect or party or mob that doesn’t want power, convinced that it would know how to use it as no one ever has before." Huh? I'm an ordinary person and have no interest in having power whatsoever. I've worked with many people who desire power. Many of my friends have no desire for power. My family members have no desire for power. Etc., etc., etc. So I don't know what the heck you're talking about in this sentence.
6
"So I don't know what the heck you're talking about in this sentence."
As this essay series shows, the word "power", like many words, is very ambiguous.
So you have to do some close reading to figure out what the author means by "power".
Here is the first clue: "... I’ve always been afraid of having authority assigned to me."
So by "power", Ferrante means "having authority". Note that she amends that with "... assigned to me." So "power" is or may be conferred on someone.
Next, Ferrante says that "Telling stories really is a kind of power, ..."
Here, Ferrante establishes a SECOND meaning of "power" -- one that is attained through story telling. And that meaning is what she intends to use in the rest of her essay.
So, dear reader, have you ever told a story seeking to get a reaction from your listeners? Or to explain something (e.g. a Bible story or a classic myth)? What about a joke?
14
Right on. We must not fear exercising powering on our OWN behalf - first and foremost for the control of our own bodies. But we must understand that there will always be hierarchies and we must be ready to lead. In this day and age being physically stronger is not really important: technology can overcome brute force. As an adult you must be independent - of a spouse, a government, an employer. Don’t sell yourself into slavery over a piece of jewelry!
6
Intelligent women have learned to be succinct because men usually only listen to about the first two sentences that a woman speaks. Succinct is efficient but not when it comes to storytelling. Men, on the other hand, have been encouraged to be verbose in order to “hold the floor” in any given situation. Verbosity is boring as hell but is extremely helpful when it comes to filling pages. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat at a meeting and wanted to scream: “You’ve made your point, now for godsake, please SHUT UP!”.
22
If there is one area, where women tend to outperform men by a significant margin -- that area is leadership. There is a whole body of science and empirical research pointing to that phenomena.
Remarkably, these studies point out the problem with our idea of the image that a good leader should project. For example, self-confidence is something we attribute to being a good leader -- although, in reality, that is a narcissistic trait. We think confidence means they know what they are talking about -- but they don't, they are just crazy!
In other words, women are better leaders because they do NOT look like men in power do!
https://youtu.be/zeAEFEXvcBg
8
Women have power, the power of the womb. No human child can be born but from a mother's womb. Lysistrata had a point, and it was one that females today should realize. Without the cooperation of women, the species would become instinct, so why are women succumbing to a male idea of beauty? Why are we buying false eyelashes and putting on lipstick to be more attractive to men? A man's legacy is the children he brings into the future, and to do that he must mate with a woman. That is where the power we are forfeiting regularly really lies.
11
She's never heard of the Bronte sisters, or Emily Dickinson, apparently.
9
Plenty of theoretical talk of "leading like women" - but none of that is ever defined, with the exception of a vague notion that it's more just and caring.
Carnivores have sharp teeth to cut meat. It's a evolutionary dominant adaptation for carnivores. I'm not sure that the stereotypical male style of leadership isn't just the most dominant/successful style of leadership, with the error being defining it as "male".
6
@Tim Mosk There is much discussion of all of this available, going back decades—just not acknowledged in this article.
3
Men do what they do because collectively and historically they have had a stronger drive toward adventure, innovation, and building. They tell their stories because they want to. The playing field has always been exactly level, and always will be; the catch is that this life is a competition.
6
@Kim Is this satire? Honestly, you cannot be serious.
20
I am rather skeptical of the idea that "female power" looks or would look fundamentally much different from "male power." That seems at least as idealistic as the notion the author rightly condemns that women are inherently any more morally worthy than men. And if we agree that they aren't - why would we think that a world ruled by women would be any more moral a place than one ruled by men?
13
Jane Eyre? Wuthering Heights, Middlemarch? Pride and Prejudice? All the novels of Dawn Powell, To Kill A Mockingbird, Virginia Woolf, Zora Neal Hurston, Katherine Ann Porter, George Sand, Louisa May Alcott, Lady Murasaki, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Elizabeth Taylor (novelist not actress)....Pat Barker, Djuna Barnes, Margaret Kennedy,,Rosamond Lwhmann, Nancy Mitford, the list goes on and on. Women have made their mark as storytellers in every generation from the birth of the novel to this day. No man or woman has ever owned the story of what it is to be human. I found Ms. Ferramti's observations to be less than accurate creating a gender war in a field where none exists.
102
@SY
Interesting that so many of the male commenters are feeling rejected/threatened by this column. They are missing the point.
To succeed and wield power in business, for example, women have assumed the look and behavior of men. This column is making the point that women have another way of being to bring to power, not the traditional ways of the male leadership, which has not always done such a great job, understatement!
I also agree with her that we shouldn't say all women are smart, honorable, etc. etc. anymore than all men are. Women just need the opportunities and courage to bring that difference in perspective to positions of leadership. When they do, it is interesting how things can change. The Lean In woman did it wrong--did it like a male leader. Let's support other women in being themselves and having the courage to lead with or without male approval!
It's been a long time coming and we are really seeing it play out these days in the political realm!
86
@SY
But the reality is that men do not read the work of women. And so, the ability of women thinkers and writers to actually have any influence on culture is minimal.
When I occasionally teach a college-level class and have the students list what books they have read, almost no male student has ever read a book by a woman. The female students read books written by men, and watch films largely written by men and have internalized the world view promulgated by males.
I recently asked students what films they have seen that they would view again. Almost none listed a film that had a female as a lead character. Everyone ends up internalizing the ideas, biases and world views of men while women are sidelined and superfluous and ignored.
126
@SY You mean Ms. Ferrante, the critically acclaimed novelist? I think she knows about Middlemarch........written under a male pseudonym precisely because women don't get to be storytellers. All your women storytellers would likely confirm that there is indeed a gender war (one they've fought) when it comes to narrating the story of what it is to be human.
98
"...the father of the modern story".
Bocaccio was indeed a great writer. Ferrante is right there but, the "father", the creator of the modern story was Cervantes, who developed his characters by giving them total introspection--thus allowing the reader to know them in their innermost-- for the first time in the history of prose. Cervantes' craft also alowed us to see the events and the protagonists of "Don Quixote" from different perspectives (the essence of the Theory of Knowledge and The Theory of Point of View), whis is the way we know our surrounding world. Alas, all this is lacking in "The Decameron". Bocaccio only gives the reader the univocal perspective of the narrator, who, other wise, remains basically incognito, a unilateral entity, lacking any introspection.
5
Well any glance at a bookshop or Sunday book review section will see that women now dominate storytelling in this country. Aside from the spy-guys, the detectives and lawyers men don't seem capable of relating their real lived experiences anymore.
Where is the American Knausgaard? The latter day John Updikes and Phillip Roths. It's true that women simply read more than men and so the market will meet that demand but c'mon guys...have you nothing to say? I am really pleased to hear so many exciting and creative women's voices but I also want to hear from my own kind once in awhile. Everyone will benefit if we stay in a real conversation and literature is a great place to have it.
5
Great piece - what would a society in which women are empowered look like?
1. Empathy and Collaboration will be sought and rewarded.
2. Women who take time off to raise children will not be ignored when they are ready to rejoin the workforce. They will be seen as skilled leaders capable of handling complex projects and multiple stakeholders.
3. Women's needs will not be seen as the needs of women alone. Affordable childcare, family leave, shorter and/or flexible work days will be seen as good for families, communities, and nation.
4. Government benefits (social security, health insurance) will be made available to women when they cannot work due to family responsibilities.
The fact is that such a society will be good for men as well!
26
"I tend to avoid any idealization," Ms. Ferrante writes. "It’s not good for our cause, in my view, to imagine that all women are honorable, good-natured, extremely smart, fearless and blameless, and, above all, no longer the accomplices of men."
Ferrante's words resonate with me now. A few days ago, when the anti-abortion bill from the Alabama Senate made news, I was distressed to learn that the bill had been introduced by a woman. As a woman, I felt betrayed. The woman behind that "forced-birther" legislation may have been following the dictates of her conscience or her faith, but she was not true to the bonds of sisterhood.
If Roe v. Wade is eventually overturned and is no longer the "law of the land," I fear that a new age of slavery will be upon us. It may not be far-fetched to predict that Rep. Terri Collins, the woman who sponsored the anti-abortion bill, will be viewed by historians as a kind of anti-Harriet Tubman figure. Instead of leading women into freedom, Ms. Collins's actions will lead us into further servitude.
15
Historically speaking, women may have not been the narrators, but they've played a huge part! They've been that quiet voice that was the reason for many of the masculine doings, whether good, bad or awful!
What could've changed this masculine narrative from being often destructive to more creative was if women were not merely 'reasons' but 'inspirations' in the whole story.
2
Ferrante’s comment “I’ve never been particularly swayed by the rhetorical formula ‘At last, a woman president!’ — or prime minister, or Nobel winner, or any other position atop our current political or cultural hierarchies” gave me a sense of déjà vu. When Republican 2008 Presidential candidate John McCain chose Sarah Palin for his Vice Presidential running mate, my conservative mother was shocked that i, a Democrat, did not immediately, or later(!), applaud McCain’s choice. Mother was astonished that i would not automatically support any ‘ol female candidate from either party for various offices. How sad when mothers don’t know their daughters.
10
@susanna-judith rae, or perhaps your mother was just unaware of the ickiness around Sarah Palin. That Palin encumbrance was tainted from the get-go. I never understood why McCain went for it.
7
@susanna-judith rae
Look at the governor who just signed the Alabama abortion bill, but could have vetoed it. Women can be dangerously complicit, too--cf. Ivanka et al.
10
Elena Ferrara’s essay would be more convincing were her own identity known.
3
@Molly Field, why? Elena Ferrante (not Ferrara) is a pen name for a woman who makes her living writing under that pen name. That is all we need to know.
10
@Molly Field What does identity change over symbolic sense ? What is this obsession of Americans for identity ?
Is it because they don't have a name ?
5
@Molly Field Funny, by reading her work I know exactly who she is.
11
I love this statement:
“Storytelling, in other words, gives us the power to bring order to the chaos of the real under our own sign, and in this it isn’t very far from political power.”
Yes, yes and yes!
As I grow older I find that I am less and less interested in listening to a male voice, whether it be writer or orator. I think Ms. Ferrante has named the reason why.
14
Ms. Ferrante thank you. I am just half way through "My Brilliant Friend" and I am enthralled. So I was particularly sensitive in seeing your name authoring this piece, your writing is vivid, moving and insightful. Especially as felt and experienced by the heart, mind and soul of a female. We are our stories. It is especially important we don't shape the stories we tell ourselves and others to fit (mis)perceived expectations. We grow and connect by being authentic, and by honoring and listening. That is how we uplift and shape narrative, and our own collective worth.
12
In a recent Nova documentary, it was pointed out that it was very early tribes in the steeps of Asia hunting wild horses, then gaining control of them, and feeling elevated in the saddle, that eventually led to war. The first order of business after overtaking another tribe, was murdering all the remaing opposing men, healthy or wounded. The point being women were the prize. Men can't and will never be able to create a fetus or child. These times are fraught with envy of that ability as sure as we are compliant in allowing our life-giving oceans and Earth itself to be polluted and die. Talk is cheap. Ferrante infers that power is neither good or bad, only taking one's responsiblity seriously counts, though that in itself does not promise great work. Life's terms won't matter if we kill its source. Spoken by a woman no more or less wary of power, because she has felt her own rule in many ways, but because human interference has not been effective in curing mankind's madness. The stallion fighting for his mare doesn't hardly exist anymore, not even in the wildest parts of the globe. Would that we had used our supposed elevated place to share our space with other species and tribes. Sharing is what women might have done better if they ruled. Because, having given birth, women are probably more inclined to see power in community and raising healthy children and families, not dominating them.
14
Storytelling isn’t explicitly about power, though of course it both deals with and becomes a source of power. Stories are for communicating a sense of right and wrong, and are thus conveyers of a culture’s morality, either the prevailing moral sensibility or one that is rising and gaining traction. Stories don’t automatically bestow power, though they are often part of the path towards achieving power. Stories only gain power when they, to use the modern verb, trend.
In an advanced technology society, that gaining of power by means of growing readership (using that term in an extremely generic manner since not all stories are read) can be extremely rapid, but in the past it tended to happen much more slowly. Though stories are often used to accrue power, it often doesn’t work very well, sometimes proceeding extremely slowly, and sometimes gaining no traction at all. The power isn’t in the story itself, but in the emotional response it elicits from the audience, and therein lies the art of storytelling.
So stories by women won’t necessarily cause change, but often simply reflect it. More importantly, saying it must be so won’t make it so: that’s a male power move, which seems contrary to the idea here. While I agree that increasing the power of women is crucial, I also think that changing the way men perceive the methods and uses of power is an immense task, one that stories will both reflect and change only with the passage of time, though it may trend faster than we think.
5
Thank you, excellent piece and very thought-provoking. It occurs to me that stories don't just come in the form of novels, plays, and fairy tales. They also come in the form of social media, reality TV, and yes, tweets. We should recognize that all of these different forms of storytelling have the power to shape and transform narrative.
7
When I was a senior fellow at the Humprhey Institute in 1980s, I developed ideas and practices for community change partnerships that included the transformation of existing power relations. I knew the patriarchal, common definition of power was based on domination and control, and this was not the kind of change in power I was trying to support. Feminist thinkers described power as a capacity rather than as domination which gave me the basis for redefining power as the capacity to produce intended results. Feminists completely transformed my own ideas about power and this has remained the core principle of my consulting practice in community and systems change collaboration.
18
Unfortunatey while women seem to relish power these days, they really do not relish responsability. (It is literal have cake and eat it too mentality to want women to have 100% percent control over a pregnancy when they are not 100% responsible for the child.)
Men have begun to notice this, and will probably begin to treat women more and more like children until they show a wilingless to take on the responsibilty.
4
@Emily I'm sorry, but this is a terrible analogy. What is more of a cliche than the "man" who abdicates his responsibility when a woman becomes pregnant, and promptly vanishes? The lives of women are littered with such men. Spare me the "equal responsibility" lecture.
20
@Christine O
A western woman has the right, still, to end a pregnancy. So should a man if equality is our goal.
1
@Dave D:
Oh brother. The woman should have the right to control “the” pregnancy bc it is HERS. HER body is pregnant. No man has ever been pregnant.
15
Excellent column. Please link to the original Italian text.
3
Remember that Boccaccio's female narrators are fictional male creations, as are the female characters of other major authors - Shakespeare, Chaucer etc. They are not real women. They are women as their male creators perceive them to be, and the voices with which they speak are not women's voices.
14
Our existing society is the result of thousands of years of male rule. Male rule is characterized by competition, winning, aggression, power over, I win - you lose, thinking. Our current President, is a fine example of this kind of rule.
There is another kind of rule. It is characterized by cooperation, compromise, working with, we win, thinking. Many would think of this kind of power as weak, it is not, but force is used only as a last resort and only in the amount needed to change behavior, not to 'crush' the other.
I would invite you to imagine what our world would look like if we adopted 'soft power' going forward. . . . .
27
As a student, I can tell you females have just as much potential to be domination oriented as males. If you're a feminist, which I'm assuming you are from the comment, it's pretty ironic you're arguing otherwise.
7
Ferrante writes powerfully when she says, "...we are more frequently given access to positions of command, it is only on condition that we show that we have internalized the male method of confronting and resolving problems. As a result, we too often end up demonstrating that we are acquiescent, obedient and equal to male expectations." The problem is defined well, but if Ferrante can offer no solution, we remain impoverished!
3
Power goes hand in hand with leadership. They are the two key subjects of our time.
Traditionally, women have not held power, physically, politically, financially and even socially. That is changing slowly.
But it will mean nothing without psychological power. The person who holds power -- because the attainment of power is all about the retaining of it -- is the person who desires the least. That, by the way, is the central tenet of every religion.
Women -- insecure, endlessly perfectionistic -- have always been needy, in part because they have been subjugated but also because they are so emotionally attuned to others and particularly men. Does he like me? Why doesn't he call? I have to get home to make dinner for him.
Women will never have real power without financial and psychological independence.
Not long ago, I spent an evening with a group that included a woman I had just met. I offered her some (solicited) advice. At the end of the evening, she said, "Wow. You're a powerful woman."
I am powerful, because I am complete in myself. -- thegamesmenplay.com
1
"I’ve never been particularly swayed by the rhetorical formula “At last, a woman president!”...The question is, rather: Within what culture, within what system of power, are women rising to the top?"
I hope the many people saying our next president must be a woman is listening. It's pretty clear, in the US, who is elevating women - like AOC, Ilhan, and Rashida - to power: the left. And who is tearing them down: the GOP and centrist Dems.
6
@Hillary Rettig
A woman president would guarantee nothing. Plenty of women have proven themselves to be patriarchal pawns. We need as women to keep focusing on our own empowerment and the empowerment of all decent humanity. In the popular Don Juan books from the 60's, the Indian sorcerer tells the narrator that there are four tests that must be overcome before one can become a sorcerer. Power is the last and the most difficult of the four. Many people of both genders succumb to the temptations and delusions of power. Perhaps the source of the most potent force in a woman's power is in her natural inclination to nurture. This is a world in need of nurture, for sure.
10
No, it is the more extreme Democrats who are really tearing the party apart. Take for example Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren who support ludicrous fringe policies like slavery reparations. If either or other such candidates (take your pick) are nominated, they would practically be handing Trump a 2020 victory. A more moderate Democrat, such as Biden, is the only candidate with a chance of winning if things continue to go the way they're going.
2
@Hillary Rettig. What is wrong with elevating women to power?
Given the absurd and oppressive laws that Republican state legislators have been passing, and the prospect of Justices like Kavanaugh passing judgment on them, I suspect that women will be needing to call on all the power at their disposal - and more, which means that we men must do our share.
One of the most significant images serving women in their fight back was inspired by one of today's foremost writers, Margaret Atwood.
13:10 EDT, 5/17
17
Of course, storytelling is a form of power for women, maybe as Ferrante implies, one of women’s primal powers. We men must only see Scheherazade’s skill to mesmerize men, with her powerful, often erotic elixir of storytelling, successfully used over and over again in “The Thousand and One Nights,” to see that this point is true.
I’m willing, as a man, to turn the world over to women and to let them tell the world their stories. I’m little bit tired of men’s stories. They’ve been told so many times before. I suppose it is debatable, but women may be the best storytellers, even better than Chekhov, though that’s hard for me to say.
10
I’ve read with great pleasure a lot of new fiction by women recently, Elena Ferrante included. Others are Irish author Anna Burns (“The Milkman”) and Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk (“Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead”). There’s an honesty and unpretentiousness in all three that’s not easy to find in men. Plus, Burns and Tokarczuk can be really funny. It’s also refreshing to see these women’s characters talk about themselves and how they see others and the world as women. As it should, their voices seem more genuine than the traditional ways men invent women characters and then tell us what they think, when really, what right do men have to presume to know? Speaking about honesty and moving storytelling: for my money two exceptional memoirs by women are Diane Di Prima’s “Memoirs of a Beatnik” and Mary Karr’s “The Liars’ Club.”
3
Elena Ferrante wrote a weekly column in The Guardian last year. Thought provoking and mellow. It truly doesn't get better than that. Enjoy! https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/series/elena-ferrantes-weekend-column
5
Elena Ferrante says "Power is still firmly in male hands." This is a myth, and this fact seriously damages this article.
Women run the government and politics because most voters are women---to keep their jobs, male and female legislators must pander to women. Women dominate the economy because power comes from spending money, not making money---women spend 80 cents of every consumer dollar. Because of this, all advertising media must also pander to women---women control the media. Women's sexual power completely dominates over men. Most primary caregivers and teachers are women---women control future generations. Women control most all charity and social services. Because of chivalry, women own all victim power.
Because women deny all of this dominating power, women constantly demand more and more and more. Power corrupts women as well as men. Women do not need to gain more power through storytelling.
4
Beautifully written and conceived. Thank you.
5
Agree with so many points here. (Not surprising since Ferrante is one of my favorite authors!)
On the point of women leading in the male style, I’ve also noticed that so much of feminism has been about empowering women to do things in the male sphere. This is a laudable goal but since there isn’t a movement in the other direction, it just serves to reinforce the notion that it’s better to be a man than a woman. Take the trend of naming girls boy’s names — Elliot, James, Michael, Evan, etc. Would any of those parents also name their son Jennifer, Sarah, Katherine or Anna? Why do we make it cool for a girl to be like a boy but not for a boy to be like a girl?
On the point of storytelling, for anyone who’s read Noah Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, you’ll know that so much power in the world comes from stories. Whole religions have been made from stories. The power money has comes from a story. Several prominent congresswomen today were inspired to run after watching Anita Hill, and I think we’re seeing another wave of that after Donald Trump, #metoo and Brett Kavanaugh. Hopefully, as we see new kinds of people expressing themselves, we’ll also see new ways that people handle and express power.
5
When it is worth hearing, we would be glad to hear your voice. Louise Bourgeois. Mary Shelley. Agnes Martin, Diane Arbus. Some of the most powerful voices in the arts.
Women need to accept a shared responsibility for the state of the world. Until then, it will remain a slow slog to the betterment of mankind.
11
@HT
When it is worth hearing? Who decides 'when'?
Everyone you've named is American or English at some level. Time for the Anglo world to hear from other language cultures.
3
"The power that we require must be so solid and active that we can do without the sanction of men altogether." This statement is truly troubling and alienates more than unites all people in common purpose. It reeks of inhumanity as so does the article.
56
@Sean James It's inhumane to tell our stories and take action out of our sense of things without turning to you for approval? She's not condemning collaboration, intimacy, fairness between the sexes. She's suggesting that we stop behaving as if we were made from your rib.
286
@Sean JamesThe phrase "without the sanction of men" doesn't mean "without considering men". It's about women not needing men's permission to thrive outside the dominion where men’s approval is paramount. It’s not about rejecting men. It’s about accepting women as we are, and championing the voice of our stories. Men (and all people) would need to listen to these stories in order to hear what we are saying, to hear the whole story. I am not sure if you have read Ferrante’s novels; I’m only just now reading them and am on the third of the four in her Neopolitan Quartet. You may not trust her voice, and perhaps that’s why you might be saying that you hear inhumanity in her words. If I didn’t feel I know her from her books, and if I felt on the defense to protect people from just another kind of oppressive power, I might, like you, see inhumanity or alienation. But this article of hers is a part of the whole story. I hope you read her books to see the bigger picture.
235
@Sean James
Get on board the male-defined project? I don't think so.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Sean, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
40
How does one discuss colonized storytelling but leave out any discussion on how the process of racialization informed the construction and maintenance of those oppressive hierarchies?
Colonization is a historical and political process that was used to justify the dispossession of people from their land, culture, and participation in dominant forms of knowledge production. Colonized forms of storytelling was/is used to facilitate the devaluation of some bodies over that others to justify and support predatory capitalism, economies of violence, and that "othered" and racialized some as a mechanism to sustain and justify those practices. Its process of subalternising some voices to disposes them of their power and visibility in critical cultural sites of power was not only gendered but also racialized.
The matter of who is placed in the position to run or assimilate themselves to such unjust systems, may not necessarily transform its oppressive mechanizations. Gender parity and representation alone may not serve to delink storytelling from coloniality. Thus, to discuss colonized forms of storytelling only across the dimension of gender seems to conflate decolonialism for feminism. While the two can work together, neither is a euphemism for the other. Replacing one’s position in such hierarchies is not the same as getting rid of them altogether.
2
A very thoughtful essay from Ms. Ferrante! I don't disagree with her sentiments. Along with owning their story, I think females should learn martial arts from the first grade to the twelfth grade.We really need both, strong minds in strong bodies!!
1
What is Trump, President of the United States, supposedly the most powerful position in the world, doing if not telling stories - in both sense of the word? On Twitter (his ideal medium) he knows that all he has to do is employ a few key words to rally supporters, create distractions, and sow division among his own people. Trump clearly has never felt the "paralyzing responsibility" that Ferrante refers to when perceiving the possibilities of her own power. Perhaps that is the difference right there. If you are afraid of power you probably will never pick it up and use it, only be used by the power of others. I think all kids regardless of gender should be formally educated in the uses of power and the responsibilities those uses entail. Otherwise power is like an invisible object that remains mysterious even as it makes the real world what it is.
7
@MM
Agreed. Say what you want about Trump -- and there's plenty to say -- but perhaps the one thing he's an ace at is seizing the narrative.
And he who controls the narrative controls public opinion. -- thegamesmenplay.com
1
Your story is one that hundreds of millions of women share, Ms. Ferrante. The "power over" male model has dominated the world for centuries and women had to learn how to survive in that world to get ahead.
However, as Bob Dylan sang, "The Times They Are A Changin". Regan ushered in the hard-right era of male backlash to women and minority civil rights. Women who were getting ahead in business and education gritted their teeth, held their tongues and did what was necessary to survive.
Those women today truly have power and are using it to help educate younger women - and boys/men - about the absurdity of trying to control over half of America and the world's population.
Smart, progressive women and girls are no longer holding their tongues. They are not laying down and doing whatever is necessary to survive. They are fighting back with everything in their tool kit.
Socially Conscious Women are stepping up to take one-half the power in the world to change the world model to "power with" - not the uncivilized, neanderthal power over.
All women and men will benefit from Socially Conscious Women having one-half the power and bringing OUR world and lives into balance for the first time in recorded HIStory.
6
How amazing is to see one of my favorite writers on NYTimes pages.
I sent it to my kids right away, she became the brilliant friend to every woman who needs friends.
That was very timely essay and as usually she delivers perfectly.
I always wonder how is in our day and age women still treated like second rate people...
Didn't this country went trough sexual revolution, women movements, feminism, etc...
So did we see some changes?
Definitely, but nothing fundamental even with 70's pioneers like Gloria Steinem, but women rights movement started long before as earlier as 17 and 18 Century.
It' s like a democracy... always a work in progress.
But should women restart the whole movement with new approach on their own terms, speaking for themselves and not delegating this to men.
This would constitute real power.
There's so much there in unexplored feminine power.
10
I always found it very interesting that all the women I know who ever read Elena Ferrante's books absolutely loved her work. Loved it passionately. It didn't matter what kind of literature they otherwise preferred to read, they found a strong voice that they loved and loved talking about.
However, all the men I know who *tried* to read it, never liked it. And I am talking about men who read, intelligent, thoughtful men, writers some of them. They usually said that they don't see anything different, they don't like her style, which usually meant that there is no philosophizing, there is no single sentence that you can pluck from the books and marvel at its brilliance. I don't understand this deafness, because to me this is deafness. These men didn't say this but I could see how they thought that this is simply "chick lit". Can someone explain this?
10
@EBK
I will take a stab. I wonder if, for some men, the idea of reading about powerful feelings, which run through Ferrante's writings is threatening. I don't dislike Ferrante nor do I think of her work as "chick lit", but I find men are not (always) interested in the complex ways people relate. For me, it is not about the language only but also the ways in which people express their most urgent desires and the ways they claim the world when they have been ignored or even marginalized. I am one among many who happen to be an exception. I do care about what people say (and do) but it is not about apocalypse, espionage, or guns. Then again, I also prefer P.D. James, Ruth Rendell, and Jane Austen. The few who do write about similarly and with graceful sensitivity, who happen to be male, are people like: Henry James and Colm Toibin.
6
@EBK It might have to do with the fact that growing up as a male is a different experience than growing up as a girl. Women can somewhat identify with the protagonists and see similarities in feelings and experiences. Men probably have a hard time understanding certain actions, decisions or feelings describe in the book.
3
My simple answer to your question is that Ferrante’s books (which I love) are written from a relentlessly female point of view and most men do not want to make the time and effort to see things from a woman’s point of view (unfortunately).
9
"I tend to avoid any idealization. It’s not good for our cause, in my view, to imagine that all women are honorable, good-natured, extremely smart, fearless and blameless, and, above all, no longer the accomplices of men."
This is why the op-ed seems ... off. It's written with a particular conception of what male power looks like that, while not idealized, is stereotyped. It's awfully sure that society is saturated in this definition, that this is just the way men are. But if it's not good to view all women in a certain way (honorable, good-natured, smart, etc.), how's it good/logically consistent to see men in the author's very rigid way, except that it serves (in a self-fulfilling fashion) the narrow purpose of creating the narrative justification against which power can be pursued?
15
@Orthodromic Describing what thousands of years of institutionalized male power looks and feels like to women (which is what the author seems to be doing) is a very different thing than describing how men are (which I do not believe the author is doing). Instead of hearing her words as an attack on men, can you try to empathize with what it might be like to be a woman, with stories and sensibilities and experiences and ideas and a body that are not reflected back or represented in the halls of power or the larger public sphere, trying to live and be seen in a world designed and controlled by men?
10
Much of the current writing I read these days is from women authors: Lauren Groff, Zadie Smith, Sana Krasikov, to name a few. I will add Ms. Ferrante to that list shortly.
I think Ms. Ferrante is thoughtful and wise to worry about misusing the power of storytelling. For better or worse, humans tend to form their world views through stories. Well written stories are compelling, but not necessarily truthful. Our beliefs are more often than not forged from emotion and intuition, rather than dispassionate consideration of evidence and logic. Thus, a powerfully written story that appeals to emotion can create a legacy of beliefs that does not serve us well. The foundational stories of religions fall squarely in this category.
But stories also invite us to view the world as others do, to share experiences and lives that we might otherwise never understand. This has tremendous value. As a social and fundamentally empathetic species, this is hopeful.
I didn't find the two main characters in 'Fates and Furies' by Lauren Groff to be especially likable. But Ms. Groff sure created two very rich characters, whose views of, and interactions with, each other and the world, were heavily colored by their respective genders. It was enlightening to this married cis-hetero-male.
I look forward to reading Ms. Ferrante's works.
3
Thank you, Elena Ferrante, for sharing what drove you to become a powerful storyteller in this thought-provoking article. In one of the earlier comments, someone references your "heroine, Elena Grecco," yet, to me, unapologetic Lila was the heroine. Or rather, they were both brilliant and both heroines. Thank you for describing the world in unexpected ways and for giving me a respite from the chaos of life when reading your stories.
6
“Power is the ability to make someone do something they would prefer not to.” Max Weber
What I get out of this piece is a complaint that women want power, but to obtain it, they must act in the same way that men who want power do. Since women would prefer to obtain power in other ways, there appears a paradox: in the very act of obtaining power in today’s world, women are submitting to men. I find this rather amusing.
5
@JamesEric Why do you find this amusing? I find your amusement to be heartless and cruel. For women who are stuck in this paradox, it can be devastating. The reality of this paradox is why many women, including Ms. Ferrante, are calling for the entire structure of the patriarchy to be rebuilt.
4
Elena Ferrante's insights are long awaited and deeply needed. If she needs the cover of a pseudonym to feel freed to tell her truths, then so be it. But I wonder if she is now evolving toward the revelation of her identity, as the acclaim and recognition persuade her that revealing herself would not be a distraction from her immense gifts.
2
@American Abroad. Her identity has been revealed, by someone else, I think a few years ago. I forget her actual name, which I am glad of, as I want to reflect her wishes to go by her pseudonym
1
I have been a part of educating students for over 40 years. No matter the course I taught, I asked all my graduate students to read Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. I have found no better 'story' of male-female politics even allowing for the physical assets Auel gave the female protagonist.
2
This essay is a little compendium of many of the ideas in Elena Ferrante's novels. Those novels are breathtakingly interesting and poignant from a female point of view - a total world. They illustrate patriarchy and misogyny and how girls and women live under such circumstances.
13
Elena Ferrante’s novels are wonderful, agile, unpredictable, convincing.
But if she’s now going to teach lessons regarding women and power, it’s time for her to write under her real name ... not her pseudonym.
9
@Deborah It doesn't matter that she writes under a pen name. It's what she says that's important, besides we all 'know' her as Elena Ferrante. It's just great that she's come out from her novel-writing world to weigh in on what's happening.
5
@Deborah: Why? I don't see how these are related.
2
I have not read the novels of the pseudonymous Ms. Ferrante, but I might give them a try at some point. I assume that the welcoming that her writing has received is a recognition of high quality or writing and quality of the stories told. I will not know until I read them myself.
This essay reveals an interesting perspective. I have not read il Decamerone, but I will now make sure that I do. I have read most of the similar Canterbury Tales by Chaucer in the original Middle English. Chaucer a genius, as most likely, was Boccaccio. Chaucer provides a very positive view of the Wife of Bath and revealing, appropriately negative views of many of the male story-tellers.
I agree in full with the person behind the Ferrante pseudonym that women should never attempt to emulate the despicable behavior of males when said males seek power, influence and wealth. They should follow their own path, perhaps as the author does, through story-telling or teaching or whatever role.
6
Brilliantly said. It always tore at me that for a woman to be considered powerful and hardcore she had to take on traditionally male roles. A girl who plays football? Awesome! Female MMA fighters? Hardcore! But where is the power in simply being a woman and being allowed to lead, to be listened to, without having to conform to traditional masculine tropes?
365
Exactly, Kristina! The Good News is that Michelle Obama's book, "Becoming" has broken all records for memoirs and other books about smart, progessive, powerful women are rushing off the shelves. Women and girls are taking their inalienable place in society and nothing will hold them back.
Not now. Not ever again.
37
This is marvelous, Signora Ferrante.
Last night I was writing an incoherent explanation of why I have hidden my writing for decades.
This lifts me up!
Bless you.
102
There's nobody more powerful in the literary world today than J.K. Rowling, who also created the male nom de plume Robert Galbraith not because she had to, like her predecessors who did so in order to get published, but simply because she wields enough power to do so. And, the 21st Century bestseller lists, especially for fiction, are dominated by women, including the lauded Elena Ferrante. Gender equality in contemporary literature is a fact, it's a battle won.
With regard to power, it's gender blind. Given the opportunity, which is ever increasing in Western society, women are as capable of abusing power as their male counterparts. It doesn't matter the sex of the powerful, because as Lord Acton said, "power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
17
It is well known that you write under a pseudonym, hence we don't know your gender. This is not meant as a criticism. I neither want to know who you are nor do I care; your writing is what matters. The blurred line between the personality of the writer and their work has long confused celebrity with quality. It's difficult to separate the writer's public personality from our opinion of the writing. It's a form of pollution.
I don't disagree with your views on the disproportionate power associated with gender, but surely we might approach a time when the gender of a writer no longer matters? You identify yourself with the cause of women. Is this truly still necessary? Can't we at some point —perhaps prior to the coming planet-wide castrophe— stop paying so much attention to gender and simply read what has been written, and judge it accordingly? Does this have to be another battle of the sexes, to be won or lost? Surely the ascendancy of women writers over men would be the truest expression of the "male" view of power: winners and losers.
In reality, there are as many poor men as there are poor women. Power is class warfare, not gender warfare. One of my literary heroes is Arundhati Roy, not because she is a woman but because the cause she has taken so ferociously is the cause of all people.
At this point in our history surely we should instead concentrate how we're going to survive the next 100 years. Writers of either gender surely have an important place to play in that.
5
Ms. Ferrante's voice reminds me of her heroine, Elena Grecco, in this bold essay. I hope we will hear her expound on big ideas more often. Free of prescriptions or solutions, Ms. Ferrante leaves space for the reader's inspiration and her own creative spirit within Ms. Ferrante's lush prose. A delight.
3
Women, you have the power. You have always had the power. We, men, are in a constant state to prove ourselves to curry favor. To prove our value. Now you find yourselves in better position. Gen Y men, in general, don’t read. Rather they rely on Colbert for their news. My point, finally, Women own the “Narrative” now. Now put it to good use.
2
Yes but God is an old white European Judeo- Christian man.
A motherless child who did awfully good for himself without any female help. Creating spacetime and mass and energy is a pretty powerful statement of success.
' How great thou are' has nothing to do with women.
What is a more magnificent and meaningful expression of power than creation of the known and unknown Universe?
4
I can't wait to read this essay with my daughter.
5
I am just reacting to the headline, but hasn't she heard of Jane Austen? Women have been writing and contributing for many, many years. No need to stoke an non-issue.
4
Story telling holds a point of view, choices, a web of meaning. While a binary analysis of power may be a bit simplistic, there is certainly a sense that the Trumpiian model of authority/power is crude, immature and dumb. Like the guy with big muscles, it reflects the POV of an insecure boy...not wisdom, skill or virtue. Maybe many women do not want to flex their muscles or dominate others..maybe the hunger for power is the problem.
4
Dictionaries don't capture all aspects of meaning/interpretation--especially "pocket" ones--offering rough and ready synonyms instead of systematic definition.
But it's bogus profundity to do "analysis" without first looking the word up-- as though we are all Humpty Dumpties--using words anyway we like.
MW "Collegiate" offers nine senses, some with a few variations. Here are the first two. See also Hohfeld on jural relations.
Power
1 a (1) : ability to act or produce an effect (2) : ability to get extra-base hits (3) : capacity for being acted upon or undergoing an effect b : legal or official authority, capacity, or right
2 a : possession of control, authority, or influence over others b : one having such power; specifically : a sovereign state c : a controlling group : ESTABLISHMENT — often used in the phrase the powers that be d archaic : a force of armed men e chiefly dialect : a large number or quantity.
It also distinguishes a list of synonyms
POWER, AUTHORITY, JURISDICTION, CONTROL, COMMAND, SWAY, DOMINION mean the right to govern or rule or determine. POWER implies possession of ability to wield force, permissive authority, or substantial influence *the power to mold public opinion*. AUTHORITY implies the granting of power for a specific purpose within specified limits *gave her attorney the authority to manage her estate*. JURISDICTION applies to official power exercised within prescribed limits
1
Not clearly connected thoughts: what travels faster than the speed of light? Communication between photon pairs that spin-dance together in opposite directions. However; Ancient Adam & Eve story tellers, sensed natural coupling to be too energetic, attracting & distracting to allow couples to enjoy, explore & create in Gardens of Eden. After all, we with our global religions 'had' to organize & civilize our men with their pickup trucks for the building & filling of Ziggurats, aqueducts & granaries.
1
Love the accompanying photo of the woman with the long flowing hair. Ladies, please embrace the power of your luscious silver locks!
1
If storytelling is a power, than Ms. Ferrante woud be the leader of the world. The four haunting volumes of her Neopolitan quartet draws me back in on a regular basis, and the audio rendentions are, most often, the soundtrack during my workouts, played in a nearly endless cycle, provoking tears, as well as smiles and anger at the harm that men have, through the ages, thoughtlessly and largely without consequence visited upon women. I don't know if more women will alter the landscape, and if they do, whether they will be any better or wiser than men, who regularly bring us to the brink of annihilation, but they must keep marching, they must keep creating a space, in the arts and in the everyday world, that is free of male power and dominance.
8
So much to like about this article! Ms. Ferrante’s ability to tell her own story is powerful on its own.
But I also think there is trouble in the pursuit of “power”. The word itself attracts divisiveness: Does ‘she’ want absolute power, is it just over men, is it to always get her way, power to subvert or hurt another or change a narrative that suits? While the metaphor here is about equanimity through story telling, the imagery concludes toward a darker uncertainty that women wielding the worlds power may result in a ‘same thing different day’ scenario.
I’d hope women as they gain more ‘power’ can change our use of it. But, knowing a bit about human (animal) nature and it’s relationship to our idea of power, I am not holding my breath.
1
@No One No, to all of the above. In fact I think she makes the point that women have long been forced to seek power in a system which defines power in the ways you describe: power over, power absolute, power to hurt or change someone to suit oneself. And her argument is that women are now saying, "Look, this isn't what it has to be. We don't have to follow that definition." It could be healthier for men and women alike to consider different definitions.
8
if anything is an objective fact about the world, it is that some motive forces cause things or circumstances to change over time. this is the definition of power in all scientific, social, ethical and historical conversation.
what we have here is that "storytelling is a kind of power," the locution "kind of" used in the same way that the DOE has deemed ketsup a kind of nutrition.
it gets better -- we must dismiss most forms of storytelling, and storytellers. what we need is gendered storytelling by women. because when daddy reads "Arabian Nights" to the kids at bedtime, bedtime becomes polluted -- male author, male reader.
the poet charles reznikoff crafted remarkable elegies from legal transcripts of crimes and misdemeanors committed in 19th century america. presumably, if the courts had been judged by women, and the crimes committed by women, and the poet was a woman, we'd get a very different poetry. different how, exactly?
isn't the topic here: power? well, the claim that "power is a story told by women"? that's what's called a hypothesis. but a hypothesis that can't be proven true, or is clearly counterfactual, is called a conjecture.
so ms. ferrante defines power through a conjecture. worse, the conjecture ends meekly, in "should not" and "don't always have to" and "must now assume." these may be fine aspirations or not: but real power means you can turn conjecture into reality.
1
“The only consolation I have is that however badly conceived and badly written — and therefore harmful — a story may be, the harm will always be less than that caused by terrible political and economic mismanagement, with its accouterments of wars, guillotines, mass exterminations, ghettos, concentration camps and gulags.”
Unless yours is the story that becomes the kind of fanatic wildfire that just won’t seem to extinguish itself. Then there’s very little consolation to be found at all.
Storytelling is an important part of what makes us human. Writing these stories down has only ever done more harm than good.
Yet another ideological trap; women and men are dependent on each other, not enemies and certainly not as removed from each other as this author would have it. Let me tell you another story. Suppose women stop trying to define themselves as men and instead craft their own vision of who they are that is complementary? “Strong” ... “independent” ... these are male measures of success. I have lived long enough to see many forms of feminism come and go and it seems to me that we have gone off the rails. Be a woman, fully. Don’t seek to be “equal” to a male, using their terms for how to play the game. You have your own strengths, and yes each gender depends on each other, so also don’t think you get away without each other. We all want to feel loved and appreciated at the end of the day, this is what we are truly seeking.
9
I certainly hope you are planning, in the end, to gather together this particular series of essays in one spot. So far it is excellent & important.
6
"Power" confronts and seeks to resolve a community's issues. "Story telling" identifies/clarifies/perspectivizes the issues to be resolved.
Men solve problems; women talk about them. It's in our DNA.
2
@ellen1910 Funny, my experience is just the opposite. I hear men offer prescriptions quite a lot; I see women going about the work of getting through the day.
I wonder how many mothers-- stay at home, working, single, retired-- would agree that it's men solving the problems they're only talking about.
4
@ellen1910 Both men and women, together and apart, talk about problems. Both men and women, together and apart, solve problems. Those who use generalizations so simplistic as to be utterly insulting to all sides do neither. And none of that is in human DNA, unless you mean that our ability to engage in complex thought and complex language are in our DNA.
10
“There are two powers in the world; one is the sword and the other is the pen. There is a great competition and rivalry between the two. There is a third power stronger than both, that of the women.” — Muhammad Ali Jinnah (founder of Pakistan)
8
We are going to need new ways of thinking as the forced-birth movement enacts every more repressive, anti-woman laws and heads to a right wing Supreme Court for validation. Perhaps the stories will be comforting to future women forced back into a submissive, homebound life.
4
I love this article and hope to quote/cite it in my own work!
5
Loved reading this and it made me think back, inevitably, to Hillary Clinton’s narrow loss in the last election... here is a good example of someone who failed to harness the power of narrative that Ferrante writes of. Or she just didn’t have a good one to work with.. but the key thing is not to repeat the mistake: either vote for me or else Trump is not a narrative, it’s not compelling, and it won’t win.
9
Among the finest contemporary novels I have read have been the Neapolitan tales by Elena Ferrante. Their power reached into my soul as both a woman and a second generation Southern Italian-American. Ms Ferrante’s spirit comes through with the force of her eloquent story telling. She through her female protagonists paints a portrait of the challenges and struggles of women throughout a male dominated world. It is not only in Italy but alas even here in my country of birth. But her characters embody our and her essence: strong, courageous, intelligent. We are told that we must no more yield to men, that they are certainly far, far from being better than we. We are equal, indeed, more than equal. Thank you, Ms Ferrante. You are brilliant and a friend.
44
Elena Ferrante, you have made my day! Though it was already off to a great start -- a 7am Skype coaching session with Norette Turimuci , the Executive Director of Resonate, a not for profit based in Kigali Rwanda that empowers women and girls to step up to leadership -- they do it through STORYTELLING. Helping women take ownership of their stories and giving them the tools to have their voices RESONATE in their communities.
For 20 years I have been coaching change-making leaders around the globe to tell their stories. It's a skill anyone can learn ... for free! Proud to have been a creator of +Acumen's "Storytelling for Change" online course -- it starts up again on June 4th. FOR FREE!! I hope every woman who reads this post takes the course and starts telling their story -- unapologetically assuming their power -- as Ms Ferrante so eloquently urges us to do!
6
I used to live with a roommate who was not only very messy, but also had an incredibly high tolerance for mess. Since my threshold for messiness was much lower, I would inevitably end up doing all the cleaning. My roommate would tell me that I didn't need to clean, thus effectively excusing himself from any obligation to help, but in the end, he was certainly benefiting from my desire to have a clean house.
The analogy: if some men are willing to sacrifice their own health, relationships, and emotional sanity in pursuit of their professional goals, how can any man or woman who does not share this extreme perspective expect to compete? Women often talk about the importance of work/life balance, but this arrangement only works if EVERYONE agrees to the same balance. As long as some men (and women) are willing to forgo any semblance of a personal life to pursue their economic goals, the rest of us, who want balance, will always have to "enjoy the crumbs dispensed by the system."
69
@Johnny
Or we can unionize (which is a great way to close the gender wage gap) and let people who "are willing to sacrifice their own health, relationships, and emotional sanity" be management while we use collective bargaining to improve working conditions and pay.
19
@Johnny: I've grappled with this issue myself. The glib answer is that "if you don't like it, work harder", but there are problems with that.
First, the person willing to contribute more should perhaps earn more, but then if we all worked harder, what should we be doing? What needs doing so much that we should all sacrifice our personal lives to get it done.
Second, there's the fuzzy line between giving the harder worker more rewards (higher pay) and giving them power over others. I can see the higher pay, presuming that they are adding extra value to the enterprise. That shouldn't necessarily translate to extra control (management), and of course there is a limit. C-suite pay is far out of proportion to the value that those people add.
Your idea of supporting a union is solid. It should include the idea that management should confer authority but not rank. The manager has the right and duty to organize things, but others don't owe them any social deference, and they shouldn't necessarily make more than the people that they manage.
The people who support the current system will counter that the rest of us are slackers.
9
@mlbex The "work harder" motto also tends to give priority to the one who works longer hours over the one who is more efficient. Our current work weeks have certainly gotten way out of whack.
12
I’ve long felt that women should lead, not by being more like men, but leading as women. What does this look like? We have a long history of growing and developing other human beings. Why that has never been recognized as leadership is beyond me.
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@Mary T Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's PM, comes to mind. After the Christ Church tragedy, she brought her country together with a grace and dignity that was a thing to behold, not to mention outlawing automatic weapons in less than a week. To me, her empathy and ability to foster connection were the hallmarks of her leadership. And she grew a human being while in office.
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@Mary T I couldn't agree more. As a feminist in NYC in the 70's, I would constantly rebel against the idea that we had to be more like men -- dress, language, goals, etc. I kept thinking, "But they've screwed everything up. They're the ones in charge. They have the power. Look what they've done with it! Why would we want to emulate that?!" Women's default position is not conflict and confrontation, it is nurturing, collaborating...just consider the management studies where most people would rather report to a woman than a man. (Yes, of course, assuming that the woman isn't some power-mad, meglomaniacal despot!)
Not to say I haven't met (and worked for!) some truly power-mad women. But that the point. They had so totally drunk the Koolaid they thought the only way to power was to copy male dominant behavior.
I still believe that Women's Liberation should have been directed toward changing society's understanding of how we work together -- yes, women need to be more aggressive in some things and men more conciliatory in others. Together we can find a balance.
That's what life is all about really, isn't it? Balance.
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Elena, thank you for this brilliant essay. As an Italian woman, you probably would agree with my Sicilian mother who insisted that women’s great power was in the Power of Creation itself, the Power of the Great Mother; the Power of Cybele. No man powerful or not will ever achieve that.
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@Robert Consoli:While childbirth is uniquely female, it is glib to claim this constitutes an ultimate power. Not all women have babies and those who do are often left to provide most of the labor of childrearing-even while working full time.
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@Robert Consoli
At this point, men cannot give birth. But from birth on, men can feed, nurture, teach, and love children every bit as much as women can. It is important for men to understand and claim this role too. Some of the gendered roles in modern families seem to come from men and women considering "child/family responsibility" to be a uniquely female thing. That not only pushes women into a role they may or may not want/actually be good at, but restricts men's ability to engage in such an important act.
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Women have tremendous power to stop the world and be the change-makers. We just have to really want it. DO we? If so, it's time for Lysistrata on steroids.Let's go on STRIKE and take it to the streets. We can shut down every airline, postoffice, supermarket, restaurant, office, school...on and on. We need to own our power. Thanks for your inspiration.
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@Lilnomad: The 'economy' is all that the men in power care about (well....and oppressing women, but that's a given - not for all - but for a lot of men that's true and important). Hitting them in the purse, so to speak, is the only thing that will get their attention.
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@sophia: Oh, and there is, of course, the Lysistrata Option.
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@sophia
Lysistrata shows that women see their ultimate power as sexual and this is all they have to withhold from men. It is passive not active.
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There are two ways to abuse power - one is obvious, and the other is to refuse to exercise it when you have it, particularly to refuse to use it to stop abuse of power.
True power and authority rests within.
And with power comes responsibility.
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"There is that great proverb — that until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. That did not come to me until much later. Once I realized that, I had to be a writer. I had to be that historian. It’s not one man’s job. It’s not one person’s job. But it is something we have to do, so that the story of the hunt will also reflect the agony, the travail — the bravery, even, of the lions." - Chinua Achebe
As a gatherer, not a hunter, I'd also add that the gathering is a story that needs to be told, from the mainly female gatherers' perspectives, as well as the land the sustenance is gathered from. Too long, we have only told stories of the (largely male) hunt. Where are the stories of the plants, berries, roots and herbs and the other ways we sustain ourselves besides meat?
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@Judith
But lions ARE hunters, too.
(I know he must be referring to Aesop's fable of the Lion and the Man, but still, the quotation seems a little off.)
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@Jim In my opinion, what Achebe means is that the European colonizer is the hunter and the lion is the colonized. The story of Africa has too long been told by white people, mostly white men.
"During a 2008 tribute to Mr. Achebe organized by PEN, the novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who like Mr. Achebe grew up in southeastern Nigeria, recalled the books she first read as a child: “Mostly British children’s books,” she said, “in which all the characters were white and ate apples and played in the snow and had dogs called Socks.” When she first started writing her own stories, the people in them had similar characteristics. “I didn’t know that people like me could exist in books,” she said. “I had assumed that books, by their very nature, had to have English people in them. And then I read ‘Things Fall Apart.’ "
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@Judith Sorry, I meant to write the hunter symbolizes the colonizer while the lion symbolizes the colonized! The quote from Achebe is symbolic, not actual!
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Thank you Ms. Ferrante for your quietly powerful piece, exploring the reality that historically "We women have been pushed to the margins...", and that "Power is still firmly in male hands...". You point out that idealization of women is not helpful, and that the idea that women might be "better" than men is naive. You identify that when women succeed by mastering the male-centric techniques, little change has been made to our male-centric culture and system of power. I am one such woman and I strongly concur.
What I like best about your piece is your call to action: "Maybe now is the moment to bet on a female vision of power — one constructed and imposed with the force of our achievements in every field."
At Woodford House, a 125-year-old girls school in rural New Zealand, principal Julie Peterson is working on exactly this, defining a curriculum based on experiential learning to understand and cultivate female power. Her focus is on articulating feminine strengths and validating them as an alternate path to success. Grit, resilience, learning from failure, mentoring and being mentored... these come naturally to many girls and women, and only recently has our culture decided to celebrate them. Woodford House is aiming to prepare girls to use these strengths and to take power, "without the sanction of men". I will encourage Julie to add "storytelling" to the list of feminine strengths. As you demonstrate, one woman's gift of this power can shape the future of society.
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Elena Ferrante, my brilliant friend, thank you for a thoughtful piece. History is basically story telling, and this should most definitely be tucked away in our minds as we all try to negotiate positions of power. I get so sick of listening to (mostly) men, beating war drums, issuing threats, putting down opponents and telling us how it is. While we unfortunately can't get rid this brutish behaviour by fictionalizing it, it is helping me at this moment, after a week when (mostly) men have tried once again to assert dominance over the female body, to consider how we might write a much different story.
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@John J.
Well, John, you should read more carefully. Rather than trying to make this another example of the "perpetually aggrieved," you might notice that your "just for the record" simply reinforces Ferrante's argument.
The sponsor of the bill and the governor are women who exemplify the "be like a man when you achieve power" phenomenon.
Those who are perpetually aggrieved just might have a perpetual grievance.
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@kglen Just for the record it was a female representative who sponsored Alabama's abominable legislation and Alabama's female Governor who signed it into law. I know the perpetually aggrieved try to make every issue black and white but there's a lot of gray out there.
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John j -“The perpetually aggrieved” are the perpetually undervalued, overpowered and dismissed by male society. And the women who act against the interests of their own sex are victims of the same system - side with the oppressors and you may catch a few crumbs from their table. They are exactly who Ms. Ferrante is talking about - women operating under societal rules set by the male culture. And by the way, I truly believe men too suffer under the rules they have created.
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"...a female vision of power"...
Not defined in traditional ways (socialist, democratic, dictatorship), but something else.
The song "Imagine" most closely defines a vision of power for me, though it never says the word power. It is more of a vision of order. And as the years have unfolded, the credit for the song's lyrics, or at least the concept, have now gone to Yoko Ono instead of John Lennon.
A female vision for a new way.
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@Anastasia Walsh's "Imagine", as you say, "never says the word power"...however, check out John's lyrics of "Power to the People"...
How about Nancy Pelosi, Ms. Ferrante? She is totally "female" to me, being "maternal" when she speaks to the President, to her Caucus and to the public. And, BTW, she is extremely powerful. The battle of the Titans has yet to end and we shall see who wins. I prefer to think of power as neutral with its manifestations based on cultural biases. I think of Christianity and the culture of the Madonna, an obviously all powerful woman who has both male and female adherents. How do you explain that and the power that Mediterranean women have over their families, the crux of that culture.
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@FRT
True, to an extent. But in Christianity the Madonna is a far second to the Son.
And while Mediterranean culture grants power to matriarchs, it is intensely sexist and misogynist in other ways. Catholicism continues to exert a firm grip over the culture, as do machismo cultural traditions. Sexual mores in France include a lot of unscientific beliefs about men and women that have been resistant to change. I could go on.
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Thank you, Ms. Ferrante, for your insight on the “power” of storytelling , as has been illustrated in your Neapolitan Quartet.
Having been told of their quality from several readers, I am eager to read these. Condescension is repulsive in any form, and Power doesn’t require it. It is time to re-examine how that concept divides humanity. It is time to treat each other with respect and understanding. I applaud this opinion and your willingness to clarify it, for women and men in these times of such misgivings.
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Elana Ferrante logically calls attention to the seven female narrators of the "Decameron".
The English language tradition might call parallel attention to the three female narrators of the Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer, the Wife of Bath, the Prioress and the Second Nun. All three are concerned with the power and authority women might attain. Powerful women are invoked to pass on their authority to other women.
As Elana Ferrante did herself, these women were concerned with establishing a female poetic-literary tradition.
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