The Feminine Playbook: Art of Power
What happens when you stop chasing and start playing? Hold power instead of surrendering to it?
Just as men fall into archetypes, women, too, embody patterns in love and seduction. But unlike men, we are not given the luxury of a singular role. When you know the game, you can choose how to play. You can become what they desire, what they fear, what they cannot bear to lose. But at what cost?
Pick Your Poison
In my many conversations with my dad on boys (sorry, Gary), he would roll his eyes in exasperation, claiming, “Women need to realize they are the ones in control.”
I didn’t believe him. As much as I want this to be true, considering gender roles throughout the ages, I can’t get myself to picture it. If we held power, why had history been written by men?
But could this be the case?
On the surface, men have always held institutional power, but beneath that, women have often been the invisible hands shaping history and male decisions.
Caravaggio’s Judith Beheading Holofernes shows raw, calculated dominance. Judith, delicate yet resolute, wields the blade herself. She plays the part of a seductress just long enough to get close—then strikes, beheading her enemy. Not fighting the system, but playing within it. And then destroying it.
The patriarchy has held authority in politics, society, leadership, everything. Controlling us and our bodies, our choices, the system has always been in their favor, reinforcing “the rule of the father.” The owner and the owned.
Historically, women have had to shapeshift to survive, navigating a structure not built with us in mind. Through seduction, intelligence, emotional manipulation, etc. – women influenced the influential, puppeteering the master.
History remembers kings. But look closer, and you’ll see the women who moved them like chess pieces.
For Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII– not only did she seduce her way into monarchical power, but she made him destroy his kingdom for her. In her refusal to become his mistress in his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, he, consumed with obsession, divorced his wife and attempted to make Anne his queen.
The Catholic Church, against this act, was then reformed at his command and her wish, reshaping the country’s religious future. Through her original denial of him– her unattainability– and her beauty and wit, Anne Boleyn created an unheard-of dynamic at this time.
Even in Ancient Rome, with Agrippina the Younger and Emperor Claudius, women learned how to hone their charm and skill to play the game. Great-granddaughter to the first Emperor Augustus and sister of Caligula, Agrippina grew up within the imperial court, witnessing order and soaking it in.
She became the most powerful woman in the empire in her marriage to Claudius, pushing for decisions, executions, and, in her most potent act, lineage. Nero, their son, was not favored to take over. Yet, for her to assume absolute control, she poisoned her husband and ensured his place as emperor, therefore continuing her Machiavellian name.
Agrippina didn’t wait for fate to decide—she removed obstacles herself to ensure her rise.
Cleopatra famously seduced two empires. A political mastermind and strategist, she manipulated Rome’s two most powerful men, Julius Caesar and Mark Antony. Cleopatra didn’t just survive in a ruthless world dominated by men—she bent them to her will.
Exiled by her brother Promely XIII, she worked for alliances to retake ruling over Egypt. With Caesar entranced by her, the two of them, through military force, restored her throne. After his murder, she moved to Mark Antony. With his found favor, she was granted power over Roman territories alongside her domain.
Cleopatra played to her target’s desires—Caesar wanted power, Antony wanted indulgence, and she became exactly what they craved, earning world domination as a reward.
To know how to capture a man’s ego is the highest form of control. But what happens when the game is over? When you lose yourself within it?
Is playing even worth it?
If you become whatever they need, will you ever find someone who truly sees you?
To be everything is, in some ways, to be nothing at all.
Archetypal Matches
Romance is often framed as a game of choice—are you the heartbreaker or the heartbroken? The chased or the chaser? The truth is, power in love doesn’t belong to those who pick a single role and stick to it. It belongs to those who become what the moment requires.
1— The Enchantress
Appearing when faced with The Player—the man who loves the chase but fears the catch– the only way to win against him is to make sure he never truly has her. The ultimate fantasy, always just out of reach. She feeds his desire for Cat and Mouse without fully satisfying it.
The Player thrives on detachment. He thinks he is immune, untouchable, but the Enchantress turns the game against him. Keeps him hooked, keeps him guessing.
She doesn’t try to make him stay. Lets him think he’s free to go at any moment. In doing so, she becomes the only one who doesn’t ask for anything—the one he can’t shake.
He thinks he’s chasing her, but he’s chasing a mirage. Staying just out of reach, offering glimpses of herself but never the whole thing. Disappearing at the height of his obsession, leaving him craving more.
The Player thinks he’s unaffected, until he wakes up realizing she’s the first woman who ever made him doubt himself.
— But she cannot need him. The moment she does, she loses. She must be as unattainable as he is.
The moment he knows she’s his, the spell is broken. He doesn’t want a sure thing—he wants the chase. If she gives in too soon, she becomes just another conquest.
If she starts believing she is the one woman who can make him commit, she’s no longer in control. He is. Don’t fall for the lie. Don’t get cocky.
If she waits for him to return, she’s already lost the upper hand. They don’t come back because they love you—they come back because they’re bored. She must not let him become a cycle in her life.
The Player will never commit out of pressure or obligation. To make him believe he is the one choosing, claiming her– he will not feel forced to commit, but lucky to.
2— The Illusionist
With The Dream Seller— the man who makes promises just to break them— she must weave a fantasy more intoxicating than his own.
She makes him believe that he’s found his soulmate, that their love is rare, fated. If she wants to be irreplaceable, she cannot be easily categorized. She must be unexpected, surprising him before he fully understands her.
If she is only a dream, something to subdue, she can be replaced. But if she alters the way he sees the world, he can never erase her.
When he starts to pull away, it’s not because he doesn’t want her—it’s because he’s chasing a new dream, a new high. He’s addicted to potential, not permanence. He never intended to stay.
The Illusionist already planned for this. Doesn’t beg. Doesn’t chase. No anger. No sadness. No late-night texts. His ego tells him she must still be thinking of him, but deep down, he isn’t sure.
Dream Sellers don’t fall in love with people—they fall in love with potential, with their fantasies. The Illusionist ensures she is never a finished story in his mind. She leaves him with a mystery to solve, an unresolved feeling, a question: "Did I let go of something I never fully had? Did I abandon this too early? Abandon potential?"
— But she must never blur the line between truth and illusion. Winning lies in her ability to remain detached. To lose is to stop playing him and start waiting for him.
And expecting him to do the same is to believe he had intentions that were never there to begin with. Expecting anything, honestly, is to overestimate.
3— The Devoted
To The Nice Guy, she doesn’t need seduction or illusion—she needs devotion. She becomes everything he’s ever wanted.
He doesn’t play games. Because of this, he is also often overlooked. He offers stability and sincerity– but often to women who don’t recognize his value. He should be the easiest to love. No games. No power struggles. So why does it so often go wrong? Why do the women who devote themselves completely still end up alone?
The Nice Guy believes he’s different. But the truth? He’s just as susceptible to power, to the chase. He may think he wants devotion, but does he truly?
She values his kindness and lets him show up for her, appreciates his emotional depth, meets it with her own.
But attraction isn’t just about availability—it’s about perception. She must make him feel like choosing her is a triumph, not a given. If she is always available, always giving, he may not see her value. If she asks for nothing, he may assume she has nothing to lose.
Challenge him emotionally. Not by withholding love, but by ensuring it remains dynamic. By making him work—not for affection, but for the right to know her deeper layers. Sometimes, say no just because. Cancel a date and reschedule. Let him miss you instead of always being available.
Go MIA for a night because you’re too wrapped up in something exciting. Be fully present when you’re with him, but when you’re not? Disappear a little.
When he realizes he’s not her whole world, it makes him want to earn more space in it. By keeping things unexpected—but not manipulative—she can maintain a sense of intrigue and excitement for him while also staying true to her nature.
Because if he never has to wonder, if he never has to reach, then he will never truly grasp what he has.
The Dilemma
Writing these out, even I wonder if we have lost our human ability to simply love someone, to care for them. Why do we play games? For the unsatisfying feat of modern apathy, of unstable attention?
When the game has finished— when the man is “won” or “lost”— what remains of self? If romance is a stage, love a performance, then where does the actress end and you begin?
Modern love is shaped by options, by overstimulation, by the fear of choosing wrong. We play these games not just for attention, but for a world where love is no longer sacred—it’s transactional. We have surrendered trust that love can exist without it.
We have always played. In every era, in every romance. The difference is that now, we acknowledge it.
If the performance is the only thing holding love together, it’s theater. But if the roles were only a means to spark intrigue, to create momentum, then what remains is something real. A foundation.
It requires both people to see each other past the game. To want to.
Attraction thrives on mystery, but true intimacy is built on truth. Those who mistake seduction for love will always need the chase to stay engaged. But those who crave something deeper will see that love is in the moment you finally take off the mask and are still chosen anyway.
If We Are Everything, Are We Anything?
The power to be everything is intoxicating. To be the fantasy, the mystery— feels like control.
Yet, if I have spent my life becoming what others need, do I even know what I need?
Judith, after beheading Holofernes, walks away victorious. But does she ever shed her blood-stained image? Cleopatra played the lover, the queen, the goddess. But in the end, was there ever a moment when she could just exist for herself?
Perhaps it is not in who we become for men—but realizing we never needed to become anything at all. Not about whether we play the game, but knowing we never had to.
Not to lose oneself because men “need” us to, but shifting because we choose when, how, and if we play at all.
Cleopatra did not seduce Caesar and Antony because she was desperate for love—she did it to secure a throne. Anne Boleyn did not hold out for Henry VIII’s obsession simply to be adored—she did it to wear a crown. Even Judith did not seduce Holofernes for the thrill of conquest—she did it to save her people.
Archetypes are not masks to be worn for the pleasure of men, but tools to wield in serving us. We are not merely reacting to men; we are deciding if we engage at all.
Love may begin as a performance, but its truest test is whether it can survive once the act is over.
Inspired Reading:
‘The Art of Seduction’— Robert Greene
‘Domina: The Women Who Made Imperial Rome’— Guy de la Bédoyère
‘The Missing Thread: A Women’s History of the Ancient World’— Daisy Dunn
