The Handmaids tale

[DumbledoresArmy]

Anyone else planning on watching this at 9pm on channel 4?

Thanks Freezerbird, that makes sense.

Its chilling the parallels with modern day western world like Trumps US or Ireland

Hey GardenGeek care to clarify that breezy little remark for all us Irish MNers?

SuperFlyHigh Can you explain the ice cream reference you mention please?

I presume gardengeek is referring to abortion being illegal, women not being in charge of their reproductive rights.

I think you can interpret the handmaids tale in your own way.

For me it's all about our rights, women's rights but also our human rights.

The 'rapist' killed by the handmaids, this is what you'll get if we aren't entitled to a fair trial.

It explores our definition of rape, Offred talks about choice, there was no real choice in any of it.

Aunt Lydia talks about normality being only what we are used to. For me Offred, Offred, not too different to being Mrs Husbandsname. It's just what's normal to us.

Many of the things that are coming up are things that are happening in other countries right now, female genital mutilation, stoning to death, beaten for exercising free speech.

On a more basic level, women here in the UK are blamed for their own rapes all too often.

It's a scary look at how the West could be if our human rights were stripped back. The rights that we take for granted until we need them.

Considering so many are falling over themselves to give up our basic rights it's not too hard to imagine.

Thanks elsbeth. I was happily reading this thread earlier enjoying it and that casual little nuggets about Trump and Ireland was jarring. No Irish women would deny that we have a way to go with women's reproductive rights. But we are working hard on changing things and things are changing. We just have a big win with the maternity hospital. We are very tolerate as a whole being one of the first countries to legalise gay marriage via public vote. When there are woman all over the world being stoned to date after being raped, being forced to marry as children, not allow study, work, drive a car : it seems a bit ridiculous to hold ireland up as an example

Offred was one of those who thought, well we are all equal now and rolled her eyes at her mothers' second wave ways.

I don't find it ridiculous to hold Ireland up as an example, and I am Irish and living in Ireland myself.

The fact that Ireland appears so far on in some respects but is woefully behind in others is exactly the point here. The country that falls in this story is the USA. Supposedly the leader of the free world. Gilead wasn't born out of a developing country, or even a poor country, it was born out of the most powerful country in the world.

We could look at lots of countries around the world for examples of what is happening in this story...but the fact that we can find examples in the US and in the UK (NI!) and Ireland is the most shocking IMO.

I can't actually believe I read that....

This is a chilling parallel www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4555734/Woman-19-sentenced-die-raped-Pakistan.html

Sorry for the Daily Fail link.

But yes, I'd also hold up Ireland as an example of state control over women's reproductive rights- as well as the Christian far right in the US, who are doing their damndest to curtail women's existing rights. Just because Saudi Arabia doesn't let women drive, doesn't mean Ireland/the US gets off without criticism.

It is fine if it makes you uncomfortable, but please don't act like our reality is perfect. Women in Ireland do not have control over their own bodies. That is a fact that makes me highly uncomfortable. And it isn't on TV or in the pages of a book.

The spying and snitching made me think of East Germany.

I don't think England is so great either. Marital rape only became a thing 20 years ago. Look at the recent rape cases we've had. Ched Evans found not guilty at his retrial when he'd more or less admitted it previously. People hounding his victim still even now. Because she was drunk. Because she went back to a hotel for sex with someone. Because because because.

We still have a long way to go. Even today, on a thread in Feminism, someone called everyone 'feminazis'. It's 2017. We can point at Ireland and the US all we like but there are many men - and complicit women - in the UK as a whole who would go back to 'traditional values' and 'the good old days'. I overheard four women talking about 'these single mothers who only have babies for all the money they get' two weeks ago.

Honestly, scratch the surface, it's all there with more people than you think. And that's what scares me. They say you're never more than 10 feet (I think) from a rat. I'd say you're rarely more than 10 feet from someone who'd happily screw women over to advance themselves.

A scene I have just watched in Episode 7 reminded me of an article I read about a month ago about stuff that is going on in the US now. Maybe not to the same extremes, but the idea is still there. Don't want to say more due to spoilers.

And for those who asked up thread, Offred's mother was referred to in Ep 7.

You're literally comparing Gilead to Ireland.

Literally.

So the structure of the tv series is going to have to be different. In the book you assume it's chronological, until you read the notes at the end when you learn that it was reassembled from a series of episodic tapes and they have no idea of the order, or even if it's a story told by one woman.

When you go through the book again, you see that there are different narrative styles, and that many if the events could have happened in a different order.

(I've taught this a few times, and have written one of the resource guides on it)

Ooh, I may actually HAVE your resource guide!

Elspeth - I don't think that pp are comparing Gilead to Ireland, I think this whole discussion arose from the point that Margaret Attwood said all the bits of the story exist or have happened in different places. If we take all those fragments and put them together, we get Gilead. Those fragments exist in pretty much every society in small ways, and in some countires in big ways.

We can see the right wing fundamentalist movement in the US as one fragment, and the abortion rights in Ireland (and many other places) is another fragment.

The point is I think that Margaret Attwood didn't invent any of it, but took these fragments and said what would happen if they all occurred in one place at one time.

There are some places in the world where I think Gilead is pretty much there 99%. The regime under the Taliban would be one.

You're literally comparing Gilead to Ireland.

Literally.

Saying a word twice doesn't make it true.

I think its pretty clear in my posts that I am speaking of the abortion laws in Ireland as one example of how elements of this story can be seen in the modern western world.

You can try to extrapolate a different meaning if you want. It seems that you are determined to be offended.

Elspeth I don't think anyone is saying that Gilead is the same as Ireland.

The handmaids tale is full of bits of what are going on in the world. Yes even her in the West.

For me it's a strong message, please, please don't take our very basic rights for granted.

ThisIsNotARealAvo I'm reviewing it, but I think some people posting here are in the US.

Denying that various elements of The Handmaid's Tale are happening in the here and now, closer to home than is comfortable contemplating, is part of protecting ourselves; 'othering' the extreme examples or extreme society presented in Atwood's narrative is quite reassuring, but falsely so IMO.

Christian extremism is really no less worrying that Islamism or, if you ask me, any -ism. A bit of tolerance and acceptance of other people's views goes a long way towards not just a peaceful but also a happy life.

I heard on the radio today that the book has gone back up to the top of the best seller lists for the first time in 30 years 😁 I have down loaded it and am planning to re-read it when I've finished my current one. I read it when I was about 18 so a loooooong time ago. I'm looking forward to reading it again. I 'enjoyed' (not sure if that is the correct word) the first episode and have watched it twice.

If anyone heard Front Row on R4 this evening, they had a review of it. It mentioned that when it was written, MA had in mind Iran and Afghanistan, and how quickly women's rights had been stripped away in those countries.

I've been thinking about this thread a lot as it raising some interesting ideas, and particularly Elspeth.

It has occurred to me that actually some of our most liberal laws are just the flip side of horrific laws, and they are only acceptable because we trust the people in power. As soon as the people in power change, the same laws came become the open door for abuse.

For example, The Netherlands considers themselves to be one of the most tolerant and progressive societies. They have the most liberal abortion laws, and the right to die, which many people fight for here, is already legal there.

But take those two things, under China's one child only policy they had incredibly liberal abortion laws, because they drove women to abort when they didn't want to, some at 8-9 months pregnant. So the same law is considered to be a triumph of women's rights in one place, and used as extreme oppression of women in another.

The difference was the state's attitude towards and use/abuse of the law.

Same with end of life right to die, how quickly under an oppressive regime coudl that become euthansia of the unwanted or unconvenient.