The Queen’s Code (by Alison Armstrong) was recommended to me by two successful women executives in their 40s. “But it is not an easy read. Took me several months,” the first had said.
“No, it is not easy,” the second had agreed, shaking her head swiftly left and right.
“It is not easy,” the first had said again, shaking her head slowly up and down.
I didn’t have much choice, after all this drama, other than to buy the book. And read it.
To be criminally brief, this book is about how women can communicate and re-examine attitudes to build more effective, mutually fulfilling personal and professional relationships with men. I can imagine the screaming that will start in many people’s heads right at this point. Like almost any book, this book is not meant for the easily-offended or those who stick to one-size-fits-all brand of modern-day political correctness without allowing for nuance. This is not to say that the book is tremendously nuanced or comprehensive, but rather that an open-minded reader can pick up threads which do not get talked about in popular contexts.
It has taken me almost a year to finish the book, though I’m not sure that the ‘difficulty’ of the book was to blame. I ventured into it with an open mind, and it was clear from the beginning that it was not going to address the whole elephant, but a selective part of the elephant. I am fine with that, so long as that part also deserves valid consideration.
The book is actually quite folksy. I know that there are a set of people and various online communities who actually treat the covenant of secrecy around this book with great respect, and do not encourage discussing the contents of the book without proper initiation. This is also what the book explicitly demands. Then there are a second set of people who have made it a quick-bucks business to dole out advice from the book as cheap recipes to ‘make a man fall in love with you.’
Out of respect for the former, I will refrain from talking about the specific contents. Also, since I have not tried out the techniques mentioned, perhaps I am not entirely well-placed to recommend or not recommend the book for its effectiveness. However I do have thoughts and observations around the premise and major arguments/ assumptions within the book.
The one thing the book seeks to remind us is that men and women are designed, and hence operate, differently. In their biology, foundational nature, needs, expression of needs. Perhaps this should be obvious, but it is not always. In the rightful quest for equality of rights and opportunities between men and women, many societies have reached a point where they mistake this quest for equality to mean quest for becoming identical. And this can potentially stifle the best abilities of both genders.
A beautiful dialogue between two of the characters (grandmother and grand-daughter) touched upon how a rigid view of equality can become transactional, and about score-keeping, despite best intentions. This can unwittingly make relationships unfulfilling.
The Queen’s code goes off from the plane of equality/ getting more/ getting less/ equaling out/ deserving , into foundations of giving and receiving affection which inherently contains the possibilities for giving and receiving more than can be deserved. This is in fact our unspelled need, isn’t it? Not to be loved commensurate to the reasons we ourselves provide for being loved, but to be loved beyond reason. And to love and give to another similarly, without measure.
The second thing which the book seems to be begging readers for, is to treat men as worthy of respect. Stay with that for a moment. How heartbreaking that a book has to make arguments that men are not trash. No, I do not gain some kind of vindictive satisfaction from it given the centuries of subjugation of women. If I protest mistreatment of women only because I happen to be a woman and not because I am against the idea of mistreatment of anyone, what does that say about me?
The issue which the book tries to address is certainly more relevant to more developed societies and perhaps the more upwardly mobile segments of developing nations. Where the pendulum has left the point where one gender (female) was pushed back, and now the pendulum is swinging to find its balance.
Consider how we are more willing to accept women talking down to their male partners in popular culture, more willing to see it as ‘cool and empowered’, than we would accept the male partners talking to the women in the same way. If you have watched any episodes of the UK show “Couples Come Dine with Me” you’d wince at how almost all women are telling off their husbands, repeatedly telling them they are no good, on public television as they try to cook meals together and host guests. In India of course, this is relevant only to a segment of society where the traditional patriarchal moulds are just about breaking or being challenged.
I was reminded of a social media post couple of years back where a woman had got frustrated with her own behaviour towards her husband, wondering how she went from vowing to love and honour this man all her life, to belittling him over the less preferred brand of milk he’d bought in groceries. The post had garnered huge response from other women. To all those women, this book may provide some solutions.
The book has its heart in the right place. It tries to provide answers to relevant questions from why the husband forgets to take the trash out all the time, to how to make sex safe and enjoyable for both parties. And yet, to me it seems a little naive not to ask ‘Why?’ Why has a certain kind of feminism lashed out in the way it has? Why is there lack of trust between men and women? The book seems to point towards women and men being ‘different’ as the underlying reason, and even seems to point a finger at feminism in general. It seems naive in missing the looming context of patriarchy and female oppression in shaping women’s attitudes.
Strangely the book almost never mentions the words patriarchy and sexual assault- the two pervasive phenomena clouding over male-female interactions (even though a protagonist suffers from bad relationships in the aftermath of sexual exploitation).
The irony did not escape me that I was reading this book convincing readers of the essential noble nature of men while globally, every day the world reeled under new nauseating revelations from the MeToo movement. I had to remind myself that both things were mere parts of the whole elephant and neither one was the whole elephant.
The book talks about the potential for beautiful relationship based on mutual respect among men and women, but does not differentiate between good men and harmful men, and how the bad experiences with harmful men impact women’s attitudes in relation with men.
Then there is the more insidious phenomenon of power play in day to day relationships. Because the book ignores the topic of patriarchy completely, it places guilt on women for their attitude where men seem to be getting a raw deal. Therefore it misses acknowledging that it is natural and obvious that a newly liberated group will regard the oppressor group negatively. It is right that this needs to be overcome. But it is naive to ignore the context.
If it were to allow the larger context, it might be easier to observe that the balance of power between men and women in relationships is driven not just by the individual man and woman in question, but the history of women being subjugated inside and outside of similar relationships. Not receiving the oppression which they might have feared, or have seen around them, perhaps sometimes women may experience a safe space as a ‘vacuum of power’. They may unconsciously step in to re-create a perverted power equation, albeit other way round. And thus, unfortunately women may ‘let out steam’ in the relationships where they know they are with good men who will never harm them. It is heartbreaking when one considers that this power actually comes from the fact that their partner loves them. And yet, they may punish the men who love them for the transgressions of a world that pushes them down.
In my view, it is this dynamic which explains the issues that the book is trying to resolve, and its awareness is the first step to wanting to change it, and thereby changing the outcomes of the relationships. Otherwise following the code may remain a surface level quest driven by desire for certain specific desired outcomes.
