Literary Speculation
For this week's topic I read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. What a book, oh boy, don't you just love condescending patriarchal stuff like this? The whole time I was reading the book I was just sitting there angrily and filled with frustration; I just wanted to jump into the pages and tear the whole system apart so all the women could be free and people would stop being hanged in public for stupid reasons. The scary thing is that I realized while this is a sort of dystopian situation, it's actually not too far-fetched of an idea. If we had countries in modern times where women aren't even allowed to show any skin in public, specifically around men, then the concept of fertile women being kept as basically sex slaves so the prominent men of society can have children when their wives can't is really not that absurd.
Poor Offred knows her husband has been shot but she doesn't know whether or not he's alive and she has no idea if her daughter is alive either, and yet she has to live this hellish life as a handmaid, something she had no say in whatsoever. I feel blessed that all my rights have never been taken away like this, though if something like this were to happen in the USA in the future, there are certainly a couple things about me that would get me immediately blacklisted and possibly executed, depending on who took over that is. Fortunately, while the events of The Handmaid's Tale are not too far-fetched, I do believe that they are hopefully that way for our country here. We have major issues here but I don't think we would ever let something like that happen as we've already got past some of the levels in those countries where women can't even show their skin. And yet... I've also heard some of those places actually used to be better and regressed, so I guess there's no promises about it one way or another.
Something that really irks me is that there are people who would be totally fine with this setup and in fact actually prefer it, and what REALLY bothers me is that there are even women who would be fine with this, of course the women who would be fine with this probably all think they would be the wives and still have some power, though not as much as the men obviously. I know there are women who would be okay with this because of what I've heard some of the women in politics say, some of them seem totally fine with laws that would give them less freedom. If there are women who are fine with anti-abortion laws, then there will of course be women who would be fine with a situation like the one in this book. I don't understand that at all, why would you be okay with losing rights? I guess some people just don't care about having all the rights they deserve.
It worries me that this book is not very far-fetched like I mentioned before. I don't think it would ever happen in this country, but it could certainly be feasible in other places where rights are overall not respected as much. We have issues here, sure, but hopefully nothing bad enough that could lead to a handmaid situation. Luckily, all the stuff blowing up recently about sexual assault and taking actual steps to punish those who are the predators is a step in the right direction. It's sad that it's such a wide-spread problem, I think I read a statistic that said something to the effect that 2 of 3 women will be either sexually assaulted or have an attempt like that made on them in their lifetime. I have no idea if that's true, hopefully it's less than that, but unfortunately I readily believe the 2 of 3 thing, and that's a huge problem. In a perfect world it would be zero, but sadly that's impossible as there will always be people who are gross and try to assault others. Anyways, while it's still a massive problem, at least more and more people are finding the courage to come forward about things like this, and the thing that might be even better than that is the fact more people who are the abusers and predators are actually being punished for it rather than just getting a whack to the knuckles and a warning. The fact we are making it more and more clear in general that it's unacceptable to act this way and assault others should hopefully start to prevent it more in the future, but also should be an indicator that we are heading away from a handmaid situation, at least in this country.
Poor Offred knows her husband has been shot but she doesn't know whether or not he's alive and she has no idea if her daughter is alive either, and yet she has to live this hellish life as a handmaid, something she had no say in whatsoever. I feel blessed that all my rights have never been taken away like this, though if something like this were to happen in the USA in the future, there are certainly a couple things about me that would get me immediately blacklisted and possibly executed, depending on who took over that is. Fortunately, while the events of The Handmaid's Tale are not too far-fetched, I do believe that they are hopefully that way for our country here. We have major issues here but I don't think we would ever let something like that happen as we've already got past some of the levels in those countries where women can't even show their skin. And yet... I've also heard some of those places actually used to be better and regressed, so I guess there's no promises about it one way or another.
Something that really irks me is that there are people who would be totally fine with this setup and in fact actually prefer it, and what REALLY bothers me is that there are even women who would be fine with this, of course the women who would be fine with this probably all think they would be the wives and still have some power, though not as much as the men obviously. I know there are women who would be okay with this because of what I've heard some of the women in politics say, some of them seem totally fine with laws that would give them less freedom. If there are women who are fine with anti-abortion laws, then there will of course be women who would be fine with a situation like the one in this book. I don't understand that at all, why would you be okay with losing rights? I guess some people just don't care about having all the rights they deserve.
It worries me that this book is not very far-fetched like I mentioned before. I don't think it would ever happen in this country, but it could certainly be feasible in other places where rights are overall not respected as much. We have issues here, sure, but hopefully nothing bad enough that could lead to a handmaid situation. Luckily, all the stuff blowing up recently about sexual assault and taking actual steps to punish those who are the predators is a step in the right direction. It's sad that it's such a wide-spread problem, I think I read a statistic that said something to the effect that 2 of 3 women will be either sexually assaulted or have an attempt like that made on them in their lifetime. I have no idea if that's true, hopefully it's less than that, but unfortunately I readily believe the 2 of 3 thing, and that's a huge problem. In a perfect world it would be zero, but sadly that's impossible as there will always be people who are gross and try to assault others. Anyways, while it's still a massive problem, at least more and more people are finding the courage to come forward about things like this, and the thing that might be even better than that is the fact more people who are the abusers and predators are actually being punished for it rather than just getting a whack to the knuckles and a warning. The fact we are making it more and more clear in general that it's unacceptable to act this way and assault others should hopefully start to prevent it more in the future, but also should be an indicator that we are heading away from a handmaid situation, at least in this country.
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