The Handmaid’s Tale Season 2

[CruCru]

I’ve just heard that this will start in the US at the end of this month but Channel 4 haven’t said when they’ll start showing it yet.

Is there a colonies for men? Men seem to be vastly outnumbered by women in gilead. Wives, econowives, Martha’s, aunts, handmaids, colony women: commanders, econohusbands, drivers, guardians? I’m assuming the hospital porter and delivery drivers who helped june are econopeople?

Where were all the women on the train going? To work? If so, where are their children while they work? Can’t be school as girls aren’t allowed to read. So only boys at school? And men teaching them?

Men seem to be vastly outnumbered by women in gilead.

What about the man every five metres along the street, and the two in every train carriage, with firearms, for example? I remarked to DP last night that it’s a very (male) labour-intensive law and order set-up, keeping the men of the lower orders occupied and disciplined.

It’s very difficult watching I find it quite stressful. I’m unmarried and fertile so likely to be destined to be a handmaid. But what would happen to my dp an unmarried father? Sent to the colonies?

Yes but those armed males every 5 meters are watching truck loads of women walk past. For every armed man there seems to be at least 4 women passing. Add to that the number of handmaids and the women in the colonies. There’s fucking loads of women. Where are the equivalent numbers of men? Were they killed?

I presume the econo men are working to keep Gilead going, so in factories building weapons / farming / butchers / running the shops where Handmaids use those vouchers etc.

Men who did not comform were hung / shot.

Oh yes the men will be doing every single job won’t they. We don’t see them because we’re focussed on June being in hiding and the colonies.

So where were the women on the train going?

Some of the econowives won't have children so may have jobs of some sort - perhaps in laundries? I can imagine Serena Joy sending out her washing to laundries run by econowives.

It's occurred to me that June probably thinks that Moira is still at Jezebels. Since Jezebels is a secret, her escaping wouldn't have been on the news.

So men are drivers, they run the shops & work in the shops (remember when June went shopping for food), men are guards, men are soldiers, men are police, men must be working on anything that requires reading, computer skills, finance skills etc - as women are no longer allowed to do any of those things.

I guess the econo wives are back doing things like laundry, needlework, baking, non reading & writing admin, childcare (where that is required), cleaning and all the domestic kind of jobs that a fucked-up fundamental religious totalitarian regime would consider acceptable for women.

I find watching it a really stressful ordeal each week, but I am absolutely gripped. I think the next episode is going to be really difficult viewing.

I could imagine that a regime like Gilead might sack all the women when the economy is still functioning and then send them out to work a few years later.
I remember reading that the Nazis encouraged German women to think they wouldn't need to work in the new Germany and lured them with promises of lives of domestic bliss, then of course the reality a few years later was factories, war work and agricultural labour.
It could be a scenario like that.

I loved last night's episode and like other posters, found it very stressful! I also couldn't stop thinking about it!
Re where are the men? A lot will be in the army (voluntarily or conscripted). In the book anyway, the war is ongoing. The refugee that Moira was helping said he was conscripted and forced to hang bodies on the wall

I also wondered where all the econowives were going on the train.

Was the lesbian sex in the toilet necessary? I only ask because of recent comments here and in the media about gratuitous sex scenes for male titillation.

I think that scene was alluding to something going on with Moira. She was very “cold” and detached in the scene. Maybe further episodes will show her further struggle with “normal” life after gilead.

I also thought Moira was cold and detached in the lesbian sex scene; note that she declined to have the treatment reciprocated and she washed her hands immediately, like she was performing a clinical procedure. When she said her name was “Ruby”, to me it indicated that maybe she’s accepted that she would never be truly free from Gilead.

Was her name ruby in gilead? I couldn’t work out why she gave a fake name.

Her name was Ruby at Jezebel’s.

She only became Ruby at Jezebel’s, iirc.

I think the lesbian sex scene was valid, Moria was stil affected by what happened to her gilead, she never was put in the position of handmaiden yet she was shared around in Jezebel’s into have heterosexual sex when she was clearly a lesbian. It was her first encounter since getting out, she couldn’t bare to be touched.

I find myself holding my breath during every episode, need to remember to breathe! Oh my god the ending. So close to some sort of freedom on the plane.

Am exhausted! What next? I can hardly bear it, but can't stop watching. Such amazing performances and a stunning drama. I desperately want some sort of happy resolution for June, Hannah and husband, but how on earth can that happen after everything?

Unmarried + fertile wouldn't necessarily = handmaid though. The Handmaids are sinners, basically criminals, whose allocated punishment under the new regime is to be Handmaids. Other 'sinners' - male 'gender traitors', 'adulterers' who are not fertile, those who fought against the regime or have facilitated 'sin' (doctors who've provided abortions, priests who don't turn over sinners) and so on, have been executed (or will be, once caught). So people like Aunt Lydia genuinely feel that they are redeeming the Handmaid's souls, literally saving their lives in the face of a grim alternative.

So just being single and fertile wouldn't mean you'd become a handmaid. You'd probably be married off asap to a commander, or more likely you'd be an econowife (there's only so many commanders after all). The family June stayed with had a child, presumably they'd broken no rules so were allowed to stay as they were. It isn't 100% about fertility, or they'd be using ivf, egg and sperm donation etc. It all has to be left to God to decide who will be 'blessed'.

As a still fertile (I assume) unmarried mother of two, I imagine my children would be dragged off to be brought up by more 'suitable' parents, while I was forced to be a (rather elderly) handmaid.

So by that criteria I would be a handmaid (unmarried mother, bisexual) and so would all 3 of my sisters and most of my mates. Also lots of people on this thread have said they would too. I'm guessing in todays society, there would quite a vast number of fertile sinners to be 'saved'. How many handmaids do they need? There can only be so many Commanders, right?

Also, who gets to be an Aunt? Are they Just super devout volunteers?

Chevalier- don’t forget that fertility had massively declined, so all is ‘sinners’ wouldn’t have viable wombs / ovaries etc, so we’d be hanging from the wall!

I think they drew the Aunts from the following occupations

Headmistresses
HR Managers
Sports Coaches
Social Services

Basically women that had been in positions of leadership and organisation

It is obviously a prerequisite to be Christian or rather Gileads distorted version thereof so I'd say wives of pastors and senior church going women (like Union of Catholic Mothers types) would be the obvious choice