Are there any bad men in the Handmaid's Tale

Dick= sick

No , it was Emily who reminded her that she couldn’t be dick every month. The wife had no control over it.

I wouldn't say she was nice. She showed some small amount of compassion by postponing the ceremony for a month, but made it clear that it couldn't be avoided every time, and not in a fearful way.

Yes, but Emily told her she couldn’t be sick every month. The implication was, this was happening no matter what the wife thought about it.

There was one nice wife. I think it was Emily’s family. Didn’t she pretend to be sick to avoid the ceremony?

I don’t think AL is a sadist. I think she was a total believer and that she was crying with religious fervour/joy at the promise of a new baby.

She's a sadist and a zealot, that's the worst kind, and the most easily manipulated. She only has power because the men allow her to, because they don't want to get their hands dirty.

Yes - but that's my point - even in her most private moments she's revealed to be a woman that rejoices in the suffering of others because it benefits her.

Of course she is, that's why the men in power put her in charge. She's a psychopath. Like the bitch of Buchenwald & the Beautiful Beast of Auschwitz, and a lot of the other women put in charge of the women in concentration camps. She's a sadist that the men in power have used to their advantage.

Yes - but that's my point - even in her most private moments she's revealed to be a woman that rejoices in the suffering of others because it benefits her.

If you think of any other portrayal of a person showing relief in their own narrow escape it can be paired with empathy for another or callous disregard. The director will have given the actor notes on how to play that scene, and one of them was not "Aunt Lydia spares a moment to think of how much suffering she is facilitating and shows some private remorse alongside her relief"

The scene where Aunt Lydia was alone in the bell tower crying looked for a minute like she was suffering intense remorse over the part she was playing and the whole situation, but it was revealed to be joy instead.

I assumed the joy was partly because her position depends on handmaids getting pregnant.

I feel a similar unease pratchet.

I keep hoping they will reveal the distress of the wives and aunts in private moments in having to participate in oppressing other women, but they don't. The scene where Aunt Lydia was alone in the bell tower crying looked for a minute like she was suffering intense remorse over the part she was playing and the whole situation, but it was revealed to be joy instead.

There is too much overt schadenfreude from the women with 'power' (agree that they don't really have much power) and barely any nuance.

It seems to be brave oppressed handmaids/brave whiteknight rescuers/vicious sadistic wives and aunts and all the other men are automatons like the guards or cool and disaffected commanders.
The men are almost portrayed as passive obedient citizens of the system (or whiteknights) whilst the women seem to be portrayed as revelling in their own cruelty.

In fact the women seem to be dropped into the madonna/whore binary. If you're oppressed enough we'll root for you, but if you're only a bit oppressed we can still get to hate you, bitch.

this book came out in 1985 when the US religious right had a LOT more powerful and some didn't think it very far fetched that the US would tear up women's rights to abortion and usher in a theocratic regime. The RR in the US still have power, but they're not as much of a threat as they were in the 80s.

Have you not seen the news on what's been happening with abortion rights (or the lack of them) in some US states? It isn't far-fetched that they'll tear up rights to abortion, because it's happening right now.

I must admit with all the shots of Serena making speeches in the past, plus looking always discontented now AND all the scenes of her gardening, I'm starting to get a real "you reap what you sow" vibe regarding her which is a bit disappointing. Yes she was involved in the whole thing but setting her up as taking all the BLAME for the whole thing while the men all bop around happily seems a bit off.

No, no, no how can you be so blind? This has and is happening.

No, no, no.

It's really not....

The vibe I take from the TV is that the wives took control but then relinquished it to the husbands. And the handmaids bear the brunt of their actions.

Really? The vibe I get is that the men capitalized on growing fears about infertility and constant international conflict to seize control. The Handmaid idea came from Serena, but that's only one part of the whole that is Gilead (like whatever radioactive crap they are digging up in the colonies?).

The vibe I take from the TV is that the wives took control but then relinquished it to the husbands. And the handmaids bear the brunt of their actions.

Re: Aunts in THT - Dworkin talks a lot about right wing women with religious beliefs and is enlightening.

www.feministes-radicales.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Andrea-DWORKIN-Right-Wing-Women-The-Politics-of-Domesticated-Females-19831.pdf

Men in power can be nasty or benevolent or any shade in between (as JF's character is). Women in power can only be power hungry bitches.

That's simply not true. Although the "power hungry bitch" may be a common fiction trope, it's not exclusive. There's plenty of fiction where women in power are somewhere inbetween, or benevolent.

The problem with it is that it has a very "but women do it too" vibe, which is pretty prevalent in today's TV pantheon of sexist tropes.

I've just been watching a garden-variety murder mystery. At the beginning there was a "feminist" flavored character who made a bit of a flouncy statement that statistically the murderer was likely to be male. I correctly predicted that the murderer would indeed be female because you know "women do it too".

Not only was she female but she was jealous, emotional and a career woman to boot. There's something about women in power that makes us profoundly uncomfortable. Men in power can be nasty or benevolent or any shade in between (as JF's character is). Women in power can only be power hungry bitches.

HT definitely has that vibe.

And yet the truth is of course, that patriarchy serves men. Yes it hurts those men who choose not to comply but mostly it serves them . The women, not so much. As a woman in a patriarchy the most you'll end up is second place. They haven't shown that dynamic of complicity and lack of choice at all.

To be fair, it is a fantasy like The Walking Dead.
No, no, no how can you be so blind? This has and is happening. Listen to the Radio 4 book program with MA on it. Every part of this story has an actual historical basis. This novel is terrifying because it pulls together so many different strands of the Patriarchy and it's abuse/use of religion when a cataclysmic event rocks society. In this case the collapse of fertility leads men (and compliant sterile women) to subjugate 'othered' women; adulterers, lesbians, divorcees. Women will comply when the option is mutiliation, beating, death pretty much all of us will tbf.

Women with little power and limited language are often unaware of their legal rights that paragraph may make you feel better LassWiADelicateAir it makes me feel ashamed. Sharia courts have no place in our society

i can't watch the TV series though - too sad and grim for me, I can't stand rapes being dramatized, I found the book to be brilliant, but like 1984, it's not one I could re-read for enjoyment.

infinitesheldon, not to mention that this book came out in 1985 when the US religious right had a LOT more powerful and some didn't think it very far fetched that the US would tear up women's rights to abortion and usher in a theocratic regime. The RR in the US still have power, but they're not as much of a threat as they were in the 80s. Women's bodies are still being controlled - vis Ireland on abortion, access to contraception etc. If this were a US forum you'd have a lot more comments on that but 100% agree on Sharia - I was telling DD the other day there are still countries where girls can't go to school because they're either needed for domestic labour, or their families don't believe girls should be educated.