I used to be a divorce lawyer, and I often think about one of the more exciting days I had at work: the day a client messengered over a massive binder of printouts of her soon-to-be ex-husband’s Reddit history. She had found out he was an avowed red piller, and I spent a very infuriating afternoon reading through every word of his misogynistic screed. My favorite part was a thread about how much he and other commenters hated female lawyers. The group concluded that female lawyers’ tendencies towards objective thinking, independence, and general back-talk make them such aberrations of femininity that they are–and I quote–”not human.” The most telling complaint? “They are trained to read you.”
I was amazed at how many men agreed with the insane sentiment that intelligence and intuition in a woman amounted to an unholy abomination. Unfortunately for me, I never got a shot at this guy in court (their divorce was settled quickly given that, predictably, this mouth-breathing ding dong didn’t care about getting custody of his kid). However, I did take away one solid piece of wisdom from the experience: men hate nothing more than a powerful woman who can call them on their bullshit.
I saw this same phenomenon play out in the Dune movies with the Bene Gesserit characters. For those who aren’t familiar, Dune is a sci-fi story that starts as a political drama about who controls the supply of a sandworm-produced drug called “spice” and ends with a straight-up jihad led by Timothée Chalamet. There are many different factions at play in this cosmic epic, but my favorite by far is the Bene Gesserit, an ancient school of women who have undergone such powerful physical and mental conditioning that they essentially have superhuman abilities. They are often mischaracterized as witches, which is incorrect for several reasons: first, this is sci-fi, not fantasy, so there is no magic involved (sorry, nerd alert), and second, it is dismissive of the level of discipline and skill cultivated by the members of the sisterhood.
Men hate nothing more than a powerful woman who can call them on their bullshit.
They are trained to have intense emotional intelligence and observational skills, to the extent that they can almost always tell when someone is lying. They have superior fighting skills and complete control over their bodies, including their fertility, and are schooled in diplomacy, intelligence gathering, and powerful manipulation. While they operate under the guise of being in service of the Emperor, they are actually enacting their own millennia-long plans for the future of humanity, using their powers to manipulate interplanetary politics and a secret breeding program aimed at creating an all-powerful being under their control (which ultimately leads to the space jihad–oops!). In other words, the Bene Gesserit is what would happen if women got together and applied traditionally feminine skills and capabilities to the goal of controlling humanity–aka the cishet patriarchy’s worst fear because, as Dune demonstrates, it would totally work.
Warner Bros. Pictures
Denis Villeneuve’s recent Dune movies do an excellent job of visually communicating the nature of the Bene Gesserit’s powers through their costuming, spearheaded by costume designer Jacqueline West. Wholly feminine yet unconcerned with the male gaze, the Bene Gesserit’s outfits are a beautiful balance of delicacy and strength. If their dress or robe is modest and high coverage, the material will then be silky, diaphanous, and form-hugging; if the materials are thick and durable, it will also have strategically placed cutouts or intricate beadwork and embroidery. Towering headdresses abound—an accessory both powerful and modest, adding height and regality. Veils are also common, often in martial materials like metal, while jewelry is piled on and worn like armor.
Nothing better channels feminine power than Florence Pugh in what is essentially a demure chainmail niqab. My favorite aspect of the veil motif is the emphasis on the eyes: the Bene Gesserit’s power is in their perception, not in being perceived. Eyes without a face, they are the ones who profit from their sexual appeal–not men. Their modesty combined with unabashed femininity clearly communicates that they are the ones who read–not the ones who are read.
The Bene Gesserit’s power is in their perception, not in being perceived.
Unlike most traditional “girl boss” heroines who can fight like a guy and hang with the boys, the Bene Gesserit source their power from normally discounted female skills and abilities like communication, emotional intelligence, reproduction, and motherhood. Their strength lies in self-control, communication, teaching, and nurturing. They have no qualms about using the things that the patriarchy has claimed are sacred and beyond exploitation, like female sexuality and motherhood (never mind the fact that men have always used sex as a weapon and bloodlines to assert power).
They are the wives and partners of powerful men, but their allegiance is always to the Bene Gesserit sisterhood and their schemes. It is men’s constant underestimation of them, borne out of nothing but sheer patriarchal hubris, that enables their success. For example, the most powerful Bene Gesserit figures are Reverend Mothers, who can access the knowledge and memories of all the Reverend Mothers that came before them. When the male political world is driven by individualistic quests for power—that inevitably leads to death and the splintering of allegiances–it’s no wonder the Bene Gesserit, who share their knowledge and support each other over generations, so consistently have the upper hand. Indeed, the ultimate Holy War that changes the Dune universe forever arises from, more than anything, a Bene Gesserit mother’s love for–and loving manipulation of–her son.
Warner Bros. Pictures
One of my favorite lines from Dune: Part Two is uttered by Lea Seydoux’s Bene Gesserit sister Margot while considering how to control Feyd Rautha, the psychotic heir to a powerful Baron. A product of Bene Gesserit selective breeding himself, Feyd Rautha (played to terrifying perfection by Austin Butler) is violent, skilled, intelligent, and sadistic, with absolutely no love for or allegiance to anyone but himself. After watching him appear undefeatable in battle, Margot meets Feyd Rautha in person and quickly discerns his weaknesses: “Desire and humiliation.” He is both proud and sexual, and can thus be reliably controlled by sexual desires and the desire to protect his ego.
Margot’s analysis brings to mind the famous Margaret Atwood quote: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.” When men’s fears are so comparatively banal, and women’s strengths and skills have been forged in the crucible of real physical threats, why wouldn’t men be the more easily manipulated gender?
What better way to honor the Bene Gesserit than to communicate their underestimated strength through an oft-discounted medium?
I will forever love how thoughtful and evocative the costuming is in Villeneuve’s Dune films, and relish the fact that the movies are made so much stronger by all the attention given to this traditionally female concern of “fashion.” What better way to honor the Bene Gesserit than to communicate their underestimated strength through an oft-discounted medium? The morally gray Bene Gesserit are most likely author Frank Herbert’s Freudian fears made manifest, given the tone with which they’re often discussed, but he still writes them as extremely successful. They are perhaps the most consistently powerful faction in the series, which makes perfect sense to me. Their foes are of the gender who can feel ~romantic~ towards a worm-inspired popcorn bucket, who achieve the ranks of colonel and admiral, then do stuff like give out classified military information to women they meet on dating sites, their fragile egos not letting them think for a minute that they might be getting manipulated. To me, the question is not whether such a sisterhood would work, but why it doesn’t yet exist.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch Dune for the 59th time and pretend that my Lexapro is spice and my mindfulness app is a Bene Gesserit training module.