What This Theme Explores
The Role and Power of Women interrogates how women maneuver within constricting expectations to claim authority, reshape institutions, and drive public change. The novel contrasts the ceremonial façade of a political spouse with the hard-won influence of a self-made organizer, showing how Eleanor Roosevelt and Mary McLeod Bethune convert “soft power” into structural impact. It asks whether legitimacy comes from title or from actions—and how courage, coalition-building, and persistence let women exploit, subvert, and ultimately redefine male-dominated systems. At its core, the theme argues that power is neither bestowed nor inherited so much as built, defended, and shared.
How It Develops
At the outset, the women’s power is real but constrained by gendered and racial hierarchies. Their first luncheon together foregrounds these barriers: elite white women bristle at Mary’s presence, revealing how “acceptable” female power is policed by social respectability and race (Chapter 2). Eleanor’s work at the Todhunter School and Val-Kill Industries meets not only public skepticism but domestic censure from Sara Delano Roosevelt, whose disapproval underscores how even private spaces can enforce traditional roles. In parallel, Mary demonstrates that authority can be built from the ground up—establishing Bethune-Cookman College through grit and community fundraising (Chapter 4)—suggesting that “women’s work” can underwrite durable institutions.
In the middle of the narrative, both women pivot from navigating constraints to weaponizing proximity and networks. As First Lady, Eleanor recasts her office: women-only press conferences professionalize female journalists and create a policy megaphone (Chapter 24). Mary scales her influence by founding the National Council of Negro Women, transforming dispersed clubs into a coalition with policy leverage (Chapter 36). Their alliance turns intimacy into strategy: Eleanor becomes Mary’s conduit inside the White House, while Mary supplies community insight and a power base the administration cannot ignore.
By the final movement, their authority is public and performative—deeds designed to bend institutions. Eleanor defies segregation by sitting in the aisle at a Birmingham event, converting a seating chart into a moral statement with policy reverberations (Chapter 47). Her flight with Chief Anderson at Tuskegee dramatizes Black aviators’ capabilities, pressuring the military to change its practices (Chapter 66). Together, these actions—paired with Mary’s recognized status as “First Lady of the Struggle”—contribute to measures like Executive Order 8802, evidencing how sustained, strategic female power can force national commitments to equity.
Key Examples
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Challenging Social Norms: The early luncheon exposes the limits of “acceptable” female influence when elite guests refuse to dine with Mary. Eleanor’s choice to sit beside her converts social hosting—an expected feminine skill—into a public endorsement that reframes who belongs in rooms of power. The scene marks Eleanor’s first decisive step from ceremonial presence to moral leadership.
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Power Through Institution Building: Mary’s founding of Bethune-Cookman College from modest resources shows how education, fundraising, and “feminized” labor can seed lasting power. Later, the NCNW consolidates scattered efforts into a single advocacy engine, proving that coalition is a multiplier of women’s influence rather than a dilution of it.
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Redefining the First Lady Role: Eleanor’s women-only press conferences do more than create access; they establish an ecosystem where women reporters derive job security from policy coverage. The First Lady’s office becomes a platform for structural change, recasting “hostess” duties as agenda-setting tools with national reach.
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Public Acts of Defiance: Eleanor’s aisle-seat protest in Birmingham and her Tuskegee flight are choreographed breaks with decorum that weaponize visibility. These actions translate private conviction into public narrative, forcing institutions to confront their own exclusions.
Character Connections
Eleanor Roosevelt evolves from a dutiful, self-questioning hostess into a practitioner of principled power. Early insecurities—intensified by domestic judgment and personal betrayal—give way to a purpose rooted in service and coalition. By leveraging access rather than accepting it as her ceiling, she reimagines the First Lady as an advocate who mobilizes media, institutions, and public conscience.
Mary McLeod Bethune arrives already fluent in power’s mechanics: build institutions, educate a constituency, and secure economic independence. Her genius is strategic translation—turning community needs into policy arguments administrators must heed. She mentors Eleanor in unapologetic advocacy, modeling how to convert friendship into a disciplined, results-oriented alliance.
Sara Delano Roosevelt embodies an older template of female influence—familial gatekeeping and social stewardship—yet her occasional defenses of Mary complicate the portrait. Sara simultaneously polices and protects, showing how traditional roles can both constrain and unexpectedly bolster women’s agency. Her presence clarifies the stakes of Eleanor’s transformation: to claim public power, Eleanor must renegotiate even the private hierarchies at home.
Symbolic Elements
Val-Kill Cottage: A workshop and refuge built with women, for women, Val-Kill is the counter-home to Springwood’s patriarchal order. It symbolizes self-determined labor, female friendship as political capital, and the creation of spaces where women set the agenda.
Mary’s Cane: A traditionally masculine accessory becomes Mary’s badge of authority—steadiness, command, and continuity. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt gifts her one of his own canes, the gesture acknowledges parity and shared burden, sealing her status as a peer in governance rather than a supplicant (Epilogue).
The Tea Table: A “ladylike” setting repurposed as a war room, the tea table reframes hospitality as strategy. It turns quiet conversation into appointment lists, advocacy plans, and anti-lynching campaigns—proof that influence can be built in spaces the patriarchy overlooks.
Contemporary Relevance
The novel resonates with modern debates over how women in public life are judged—by tone, decorum, and perceived overreach—while performing labor crucial to policy. Eleanor’s redefinition of the First Lady parallels current scrutiny of political spouses and women executives who must make visibility itself a tactic. Mary and Eleanor’s interracial partnership models intersectional feminism that is pragmatic, durable, and power-conscious, reminding contemporary movements that solidarity is a strategy, not a slogan. Their story argues that when women pool access, expertise, and networks, they can compel institutions to codify justice.
Essential Quote
“Ladies,” I say, my voice sounding even more high-pitched than usual, “Dr. Bethune is one of the most respected women in her field—in the nation, even—and the head of a national club. Her presence here is perfectly appropriate.”
This moment reframes social hosting as an ethical stance, using the “soft” authority of a hostess to redraw the room’s moral boundaries. Eleanor’s public validation of Mary not only disrupts racist etiquette; it inaugurates a partnership in which private courage becomes public power. The scene crystallizes the theme’s central claim: women’s roles contain latent leverage—once claimed, they can remake the rules.