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Original poster

Handmaid, Handmaiden.

283 replies

CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 18:38

Can someone explain why it's been deemed appropriate to call women who appear to be defending men or considering men in any capacity, handmaids?

Does it mean something else that I'm not aware of? My understanding is it comes from the Margaret Atwood novels, referring to women who are forced into ritualistic rape, pregnancy and childbirth.

How exactly does it link to a woman who in one's opinion, chooses to serve the patriarchy. Is it a term feminists should ever use? There is a strong connotation of victim blaming if you are choosing to refer to another woman as a willing handmaid. How is it justifiable?

I'm not asking for examples of when you would consider someone fitting the definition of "handmaiden". I've seen this term thrown around on a couple of threads recently and I'm concerned that it's become a term used largely by women, to insult other women, often in the context of feminist discussions, and I find it interesting that given this very particular context, it's deemed acceptable to use? Again, given the highly misogynistic connotation feeding into the "willing female victim" narrative that already plagues patriarchal rhetoric.

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Onnabugeisha · 10/02/2023 19:13

EndlessTea · 10/02/2023 19:09

Its bollocks because a load of posters are pontificating about the feminist usage of a words, being really judgmental about it, whilst being completely wrong.

Regarding Atum’s right hand/wife - it is based on the earlier creation myth with predates Adam and Eve, and it is where Atum creates the world by having a wank. The semen is the world, his right hand is the wife.

The Egyptian Atum didn’t do that, he created the first four gods with no “wife” or “wanking”. What does this random garbled version of a myth have to do with it?

ItsAllGoingToBeFine · 10/02/2023 19:11

The point is in no frame of reference is a Handmaid or handmaiden free and consenting in her ‘service’, so the insult only displays the ignorance of the person using it in both history and literature.

But the people who are called handmaids in the context you describe are also not free and consenting. We are all victims of the patriarchy, some of us try to be free by fighting against it, others prefer the illusion of freedom by bending to it...

Original poster
CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 19:11

I don't understand what other biblical stories have to do with anything though?

Women aren't going around referring to other women they disagree with as "right hands". They're calling them Handmaids.

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ShireWifeofNigelFarage · 10/02/2023 19:10

MagpiePi · 10/02/2023 18:52

The whole phrase is ‘handmaiden of patriarchy’ (‘HOP’ for short) and iirc the reference is biblical.

That’s interesting…I assume MA based her use of the term in her books on this. How are they described and what do they do in in the bible?

This is a copy and paste from an old thread on this topic (I’m not the author):

CardsforKittens · 22/06/2018 10:14
I was brought up in a very religious environment, so handmaiden means something very specific to me: it recalls those stories in the Bible where a female servant/slave is used as a means of furthering the patriarchy by bearing the patriarch's children. The woman has no choice in the matter, and if she stands up for herself she gets expelled, with no means of support (apart from God).

But those old stories were written by men for men. Hagar can't refuse Abraham. Mary can't say no to the angel. Instead she sings this song about how great it is to be chosen to become a teenage mother. 'Thanks for the unexpected fetus, God - how wonderful. Now I can fulfil my purpose in life, as determined for me by men.'

So when I see it in the trans debate I read it not so much as a woman who undermines other women for her own advantage, but a woman who can't see any other way to respond to the patriarchy. Or a woman who expresses gratitude to men for using her, because she believes her self worth depends on her investment in the patriarchy.

I don't think handmaiden is a sexist slur. I think it means a woman who has unfortunately not found enough freedom from patriarchal influences to do her own feminist analysis.

(plus a couple of random screenshots)

Handmaid, Handmaiden.
Handmaid, Handmaiden.
EndlessTea · 10/02/2023 19:10

Which predates

EndlessTea · 10/02/2023 19:09

Its bollocks because a load of posters are pontificating about the feminist usage of a words, being really judgmental about it, whilst being completely wrong.

Regarding Atum’s right hand/wife - it is based on the earlier creation myth with predates Adam and Eve, and it is where Atum creates the world by having a wank. The semen is the world, his right hand is the wife.

Original poster
CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 19:06

If the thread is bollocks to you, could you just leave and not post? I hope you're not going to interject between every single one of my post just to emphasise how bollocksy you find the whole thing. You've made your point.

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Onnabugeisha · 10/02/2023 19:06

EndlessTea · 10/02/2023 18:59

If you go back even further to Atum’s “wife”/“right hand” you may be even more troubled 😂

Very true, the original Aramaic and Greek of the first bibles (Talmuds) use the word for a woman belonging to/owned by a man to refer to Eve.

Thousands of years later, Christian translators big on the sanctity of marriage and monogamy, inserted “wife” in certain select places to make it appear that it was always God’s plan to have man + wife, in holy monogamous matrimony….but the original Eve in Genesis, wasn’t originally put in as a wife, but as ‘woman owned by’ Adam.

EndlessTea · 10/02/2023 19:05

Excuse the extra you there

EndlessTea · 10/02/2023 19:04

This thread is bollocks.

How long have any you of you been involved in feminism for? Tsk.

Original poster
CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 19:03

Onnabugeisha · 10/02/2023 19:02

The point is in no frame of reference is a Handmaid or handmaiden free and consenting in her ‘service’, so the insult only displays the ignorance of the person using it in both history and literature.

Show quote history

100%

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Onnabugeisha · 10/02/2023 19:02

Changingplace · 10/02/2023 18:56

As are the Handmaidens in Atwood’s work, that in itself is a biblical reference isn’t it, they suggest that making women of childbearing age Handmaidens is a religious act.

Show quote history

The point is in no frame of reference is a Handmaid or handmaiden free and consenting in her ‘service’, so the insult only displays the ignorance of the person using it in both history and literature.

Original poster
CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 19:02

MagpiePi · 10/02/2023 18:56

I’m so slow at typing, and my questions have been answered!

Uou are right though OP, it’s not the right word based on its MA meaning, but it has become to mean female supporters of the patriarchy.

I'm so uncomfortable with the use of the word. It's just yet another way women are blamed for their own sexual victimisation.

If a woman is labelled a handmaid, in life as in the books, no one has sympathy for any suffering she receives from men.

And again, the underlying connection between the fact that handmaids are essentially sex slaves is not irrelevant to it being the choice term coined to refer to modern women. It's misogyny.

There is actually already a term for women who support men's rights at the direct cost of women, which I heard of years ago. They're called honey badgers.

I'm just looking into the origins of that term to see if it has a similarly misogynistic origin.

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EndlessTea · 10/02/2023 18:59

If you go back even further to Atum’s “wife”/“right hand” you may be even more troubled 😂

AdamRyan · 10/02/2023 18:57

CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 18:55

The idea that it's biblical origin being used doesn't really make sense, since handmaids were female servants to other women, not to men. It has nothing to do with the patriarchy or men at all unless you use the MA meaning.

So you could rewrite that quote as:
"Liberal feminism is not the enemy of the patriarchy but rather its handmaiden" and then apply "Handmaiden" to Liberal feminists

MagpiePi · 10/02/2023 18:56

I’m so slow at typing, and my questions have been answered!

Uou are right though OP, it’s not the right word based on its MA meaning, but it has become to mean female supporters of the patriarchy.

Changingplace · 10/02/2023 18:56

Onnabugeisha · 10/02/2023 18:50

Biblical handmaidens were slaves.

Show quote history

As are the Handmaidens in Atwood’s work, that in itself is a biblical reference isn’t it, they suggest that making women of childbearing age Handmaidens is a religious act.

Onnabugeisha · 10/02/2023 18:56

MagpiePi · 10/02/2023 18:52

The whole phrase is ‘handmaiden of patriarchy’ (‘HOP’ for short) and iirc the reference is biblical.

That’s interesting…I assume MA based her use of the term in her books on this. How are they described and what do they do in in the bible?

Handmaids/handmaidens are personal female slaves who tend to the body of their master/mistress. This includes clothing, bathing, and being sexually available. Hagar is perhaps the most well known biblical Handmaid, an Egyptian slave of Sarah, who told her husband Abram that any children Hagar bore of him, she would consider to be her own children - for purposes of Abram having an heir as Sarah was barren.

Original poster
CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 18:55

The idea that it's biblical origin being used doesn't really make sense, since handmaids were female servants to other women, not to men. It has nothing to do with the patriarchy or men at all unless you use the MA meaning.

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AdamRyan · 10/02/2023 18:55

CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 18:52

That's my point though. It's not the right word, and why is it okay to perpetuate this as an insult to women given it's actual meaning?

Show quote history

Second part of the dictionary definition:

": something whose essential function is to serve or assist
criticism is not the enemy of art but rather its handmaiden
—Gary Michael"

MagpiePi · 10/02/2023 18:52

The whole phrase is ‘handmaiden of patriarchy’ (‘HOP’ for short) and iirc the reference is biblical.

That’s interesting…I assume MA based her use of the term in her books on this. How are they described and what do they do in in the bible?

Original poster
CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 18:52

MagpiePi · 10/02/2023 18:49

Perhaps ‘handmaid’ as described in Margaret Atwood’s novels is not the right term, as they had no choice in the matter, but, how would you describe women who willingly promote the patriarchy to the detriment of other women, and by extension, themselves?

That's my point though. It's not the right word, and why is it okay to perpetuate this as an insult to women given it's actual meaning?

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EndlessTea · 10/02/2023 18:52

There’s only been confusion voiced about the word since A Handmaid’s Tale came out on Netflix.

Prior to that people knew it meant ‘handmaiden of the patriarchy’ and no one used ‘handmaid’ always ‘handmaiden’.

Basically, it refers to those women who betray their own sex to uphold, defend and act out practises which benefit men as a class at the expense of women as a class.

AdamRyan · 10/02/2023 18:51

It originated from the handmaid's tale book in the 1980s but its in widespread usage by feminists now. Its been used on here since before HT was on TV

Actually it's quite interesting now I'm looking into it as the original usage of handmaiden has a dual meaning so Margaret Atwood was very clever in how she used it in the book as "Handmaidens" are fulfilling both definitions

www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/handmaiden

Thanks for the question as that's been an interesting Internet rabbit hole

Original poster
CandlelightGlow · 10/02/2023 18:51

AdamRyan · 10/02/2023 18:45

You could Google but I did it for you

"An allusion to Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985), in which "handmaids" are women who serve the male commanders in a patriarchal dystopia"

en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/handmaiden#:~:text=Etymology,commanders%20in%20a%20patriarchal%20dystopia.

Lots of women have a strong internalised misogyny and so support various things that are harmful to women and uphold the patriarchy. E.g. most liberal choice based views on sex work. Handmaiden is shorthand.

It's hardly an offensive term although it is an insult. I can't get too wound up by it tbh

That's interesting that you don't consider it offensive.

I guess the way I see it, is that handmaids are specifically women of childbearing age who are routinely raped and forced into pregnancy, and so appropriating a term used to describe a victim, and applying that term to a woman who you believe is willingly "serving the patriarchy" seems poorly matched. The only reason (in my opinion) it fits, is because of the ongoing societal trope that women are either willing or deserving recipients of patriarchal pressure and misogynistic treatment.

Even the quote that you provided uses the word "serve" when it's clear from the books and shows that they are not servants. They are forced sex slaves. But yet Martha isn't the chosen shorthand word. It's Handmaid.

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