The Handmaids tale

[DumbledoresArmy]

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

The book is awesome, but I read it so many years ago. I'm going to re-read it.

I like that the TV series is delving deeper, an putting more detail in - the book missed out (I'm sure deliberately) so much stuff, left so many questions unanswered. I like to see it fleshed out a bit more.

I think the fact it is so plausible makes it terrifying. It has happened (nazi, Stasi neighbour spy's on neighbour). It is happening today in Saudi. My firm did work there and one of the guys brought back some government literature. It described any single working woman as a "whore" I kid you not.

Imagine our society if Isis took charge.

I did not know a lot of this about the roles/status of women in Nazi Germany - fascinating and horrifying reading. THT is starting to look more and more like a documentary.

I am sorry to sound harsh, but if your 17 year old DGD doesn't know what FGM is then she should.

This is a subject which is very relevant today. The campaigners for it regularly go into schools and explain it and ask for support in a variety of ways.

Who are the leading campaigners? Well, a group of teenage girls whose families come from countries where FGM is rife, and who are trying to change attitudes and practice.

I think the more 16 and 17 year olds who watch this and feel horrified the better. They're nearly adults.

Those Isis bastards or what ever the fuck they are called will never,never win, they will never beat or blow people up into submission to their mediaeval ways. I would rather die on my feet than live on my knees under them or their kind, anywhere in the world.

Catrina I didn't think it was suitable for a young girl she's a young adult not a young girl. Shielding girls and young women from the realities of life for women across the world isn't good parenting.

@Catrina1234 - I think your granddaughter is to be applauded for continuing to watch this programme, despite finding it scary. She is demonstrating character and spine, and clearly realises you cannot hide from scary stuff and hope it will go away - you have to face it, head on.

She is old enough to join the army, and in a year or less, will be old enough to vote and to get married - she needs to be aware of what is happening in the world.

My DDs read it for A level at 17. They probably understand it more than me. I find it desperately chilling as I get older.

They also did Noughts and Crosses at reading club when they were 11 and just started High School. I was but they understand things at their own level, and see more in it as they grow. (They also read 50 shades at 16 that their friends passed on. One read the whole series, the other 2 books. Both now think they are 'meh' ) I don't think shielding is useful. They have to know what is going on around them.

It was not knowing what was going on around them that got June and the others into that situation in the first place.

She's old enough to be a Handmaid at 17, so she's certainly old enough to watch and read it. I was a precocious 13 when I first read the book.

I am watching, with a bit of judicious fast-forwarding in order to cope with it...:(

Horrifying that the two women had no legal defence and were gagged during their trial.

We are only as safe or free as our legal system lets us be. :(

Excellent review here

www.denofgeek.com/uk/tv/the-handmaids-tale/49972/the-handmaid-s-tale-episode-3-review-late

Oh, I was a ferocious reader in my teens, some very inappropriate stuff (The Story of O, anyone?)
Although I am now a bit about it from my middle-aged perspective, it does not seem to have done me any harm [twitches]

I just had that conversation with DS1(14) who reads a lot - if he can read it, he should read it, not just THT, but all sorts of other books. He's away with Roots from the bookshelf

And looking for a book for him I found Alias Grace! I did no know we had it - it must be DH's...

"Half-child, half-pet" - indeed.

Thank you for the link, Inigo.

I studied THT for A Level.

I remember thinking of the similarities between THT and the book, The Stepford Wives. In the way that Offred's DH 'reassures' her that 'he will look after her' and that he's not unduly concerned about the changes to women's status in Gilead.

In TSWs her DH is initially a staunch feminist, but gradually starts to prefer the 'benefits' of having a Stepford Wife. It's quite harrowing because it makes you wonder how many men/husbands would subconsciously 'turn a blind eye' to women being demoted in status, because they'd only ever paid lip service to female equality.

Interesting thought. Also, would prostitutes exist in this world?

Excellent post MaQueen. I thought the husband in the book and the film erfectly exemplified the 'what's the big deal?' minimisation that goes on all the time.

Excellent post MaQueen. I thought the husband in the book and the film erfectly exemplified the 'what's the big deal?' minimisation that goes on all the time.

Oops sorry internet cut out!

I remember watching Stepford Wives at a very young age (teenage), and my mum saying "I'm sure men don't really want these automated, domestic wives" - but you know, sometimes I wonder.

Thanks.

What's so chilling in THT is that the DH isn't an evil person, at all. He's portrayed as a decent enough bloke, very normal. And yet he slips so smoothly and imperceptibly into the total acceptance of women (and his own wife) becoming 3rd class citizens.

Which then makes you suspicious that for these normal men women never stopped being 3rd class citizens. For these men, nothing has changed, the equilibrium has stayed exactly the same.

There's that famous quote "For evil to flourish, all it takes is for good men to do nothing" (paraphrased very slightly).

And in Gilead, it would appear that 99% of 'good' men just stood by and did nothing. Evil can present as bland passivity.

Oh, I thought Luke was a bit of the less well depicted characters, a bit of a wet blanket tbh.

Having said that, who was it that said "for evil to happen, all that has to occur is lots of good people doing nothing"? Or something link that.
V true.

I think going against the prevailing power is always a very brave thing to do - see the example of Sophie Scholl upthread.

Ah crap, I should've read your post properly...
You got there first (and more accurately, I fear).

Shoes and that's the terrifying thing. To what extent are these men simply paying lip service?

In the book of TSWs (haven't seen the film) the husband is initially presented as a feminist, very decent, very 'right-on'. By the end of the book he has decided he wants his wife to be a glamour-puss-bot who only wants to bake cakes at home.

Basically, the DH and the rest of the men in Stepford choose to remove their wives humanity and turn them into essentially mindless sex-toys that can also cook & clean.

So, the women have been reduced...but so have the men. They have reverted back to Neanderthal-type, and are only interested in fucking and food. It turns out that the men have barely taken two steps away from their cave entrance, and the women are firmly trapped by the fire-pit.