The handmaidens tale - could it really happen?

[ReallyFFS0]

Decided to write this after an interesting conversation with a mate.
Do you think that this could actually happen? I'm referring to the TV series as I have not read the books.
Do you think anybody (man or woman) would allow this to happen?
Would politicians?
I can see some frightening parallels, but I'm not sure it would happen, at the same time.

As I think even the most misogynystic and vile men have mothers and daughters they care about and wouldn't want this to happen to and the vast majority of people male or female would stand against it.

Thoughts?
I'm posting it here in feminism, debated with posting it in chat but since it is oppression towards women being discussed I decided this was the most appropriate place.

With many, many men, it would not take much for them to become the absolute enemy of women. Even the 'nice' ones with wives and daughters. I doubt they would rally with us any time our rights are under threat. Their silence is deafening.

I think the sad truth is that most men are happy for us to have rights, but have no interest in fighting for us to have (or keep) them. If it didn't impact them personally, they would not stand up for us.

As for how would men react, I don't see many men fighting for women's rights now. And they are being eroded, now.

This.

Any country where religion & state/ government are/have been intertwined have their own version of Attwood's dystopia, for sure. The historical and currently growing power of the US religious right and politicians like Pence make me think that country's not far off. They're already creating new and dismantling old legislation that represents a complete erosion of what have been fairly recent gains in women's & minority rights. And it's not a subtle agenda either. It's frankly terrifying how much influence and power they wield, particularly with Fucktrump in power.

I think it could happen - especially in the US (maybe not the fertility decline side of the story , but the bank account aspect)

Its amazing what different societies at different times do

Re. what would men do. A few would be principled enough to stand up for women (I reckon I could count on two or three in my own life). The next notch down would be the sort of men who took a pragmatic damage-limitation attitude (which I think was typical of some "decent" men in more overtly patriarchal societies in the past); now that women have to have "male owners", vet potential son-in-laws for their daughters very carefully and try to marry their daughters off to "kind owners" (bit like the Cat's Protection League doing home visits). Then there'd be a larger group who didn't give a fuck, and a group who actively enjoyed being abusive towards women.

"But surely no man would want his daughter to be a handmaid?"
No man? You're assuming that every man loves his daughter and thinks of her as a human. There's plenty of examples of daughters being regarded simply as things, commodities to be traded and used, and discarded. Think honour killings, forced marriages, selective abortion. When a young girl, not yet adult, is forcibly married to an old man with the express 'job' to provide him with heirs, in what way is she not a handmaid?

Google "life inside Raqqa under ISIS". It's not far off.

Haven't RTFT, but I seem to remember Margaret Atwood saying that none of the major features of Gilead society are fictitious - they've all happened somewhere, at some time. The fiction is bringing them all together in one story.

There are isolated communities where it happens now. Not so far on a nationwide scale, but it is important to remember that humans have a long history of imposing authoritarian rule in times of crisis. The more men in leadership positions talk about the need to produce human resources the more danger women are in.

ThreeFish the Lost Generation of aboriginal children. Taken from their mothers and given to "more deserving" white women.

There are isolated communities where it happens now. Not so far on a nationwide scale

Aboriginal, First Nations, Maori and Native American children are much more likely to be taken into state care. It's national scale but only one racial group. Many times more likely in fact.

Having never heard of the Baby Scoop, I googled it, and I really can't take in some of this - www.originsamerica.org/adoption-trauma/adoption-induced-ptsd-in-mothers/

It's basically still happening. And it's a pipeline from government care to jail or MH issues, addiction and suicide.

Dworkin gives some rather scary predictions in Right Wing Women. She points out that the state could quite easily control reproduction.

Say for example women on Medicare, had a few kids already...Dworkin believed the state could give financial incentives to doctors for sterilising women during a caesarean. Why would the state push forced sterilisation? Because she’s on Medicare, she’s poor, and so in their eyes she’s the wrong type of woman having the wrong type of children. Dworkin believed the state would want enough poorer people in order to provide cheap labour (dialling back abortion rights helps here) but the state would want to control the numbers to avoid high welfare costs.

But then “advances in reproductive technology is now changing the terms on which men control reproduction.” The issue is not the advances themselves but “how they will be used in a system in which women are sexual and reproductive commodities already.” I.e. the use of IVF for surrogacy, sex selection and other advances make the womb the province of the doctor, not the women, and make reproduction controllable by men.

“Men finally will have the means to control the kind of women they want: the kind of women they have always wanted. To paraphrase Ernst Lubitsch’s Ninotchka when she is defending Stalin’s purges, there will be fewer but better women. There will be domestics, sex prostitutes, and reproductive prostitutes.”

Or in other words...Martha’s, Jezebel’s and Handmaids.

It's scarily fascinating how we could so easily sleepwalk into something similar. I can see it happening in the states with far more ease than here currently though.

A regular on the FWB here made an interesting comparison with the current TRA issues saying that The Handmaids Tale could be re written for today's climate whereby the 'wives' were actually TIMS and 'natal' women were handmaids. Not what we are discussing but I found it an interesting concept non the less.

It's scarily fascinating how we could so easily sleepwalk into something similar. I can see it happening in the states with far more ease than here currently though.

A regular on the FWB here made an interesting comparison with the current TRA issues saying that The Handmaids Tale could be re written for today's climate whereby the 'wives' were actually TIMS and 'natal' women were handmaids. Not what we are discussing but I found it an interesting concept non the less.

It's scarily fascinating how we could so easily sleepwalk into something similar. I can see it happening in the states with far more ease than here currently though.

A regular on the FWB here made an interesting comparison with the current TRA issues saying that The Handmaids Tale could be re written for today's climate whereby the 'wives' were actually TIMS and 'natal' women were handmaids. Not what we are discussing but I found it an interesting concept non the less.

I’ve had the unfortunate luck to come to know a number of men that would happily allow this, though of course they and all who know them would deny it.

An alarming amount of men seem to be able to completely compartmentalise their feelings for their own female family members and the oppression and abuse of women in general.

It’s never their mum who will become useless older invisible woman. Their mum was never ogled or abused when younger.

They never think about their daughters while ogling underage rape fantasy porn or attempting to assault other young girls.

Their wife would never get raped the way he fantasises about raping other women, because she belongs to him and isn’t ‘that sort’ of woman.

And by ‘that sort’ this kind of man just means a woman he isn’t related or emotionally attactched to.

I don’t want to, but I believe that if it was insidious enough we would find ourselves with less support from the men in our lives than you’d expect.

Some men would probably convince themselves that actually it would probably be for your own good.

After all, he thinks he’ll be better with the money and doesn’t agree with all of your purchases. He’ll be taking a weight off your shoulders really.

And if he gets the final say so on everything you or his daughters do he could convince himself that he will keep you safe, by restricting your freedom. And maybe he’d like the ability to make sure you’d never cheat on him if he’s one of the many insecure people out there.

Op have you read Animal Farm and 1984? If not I'd advise you to.

I’d add Huxley’s Brave New World.

I believe it could happen. Most men would take a bit more in a heartbeat. The groundwork is all there.... the ideas of men as head of the household, the ideas of prostitution and the shame it brings to the prostitute (not the men) , the ideas that women should be pure, be seen not heard, are there to serve and have babies.... it's all there.

The blip is women owning their own lives, taking their own decisions, having access to money etc. It's not even been a 100 years for all of the above and it's not even been universally present. Not even once.

There's not even a lot of cognitive dissonance required... (I'll take care of you baby, it's for your own good).... there's more mental acrobatics required for the trans thing and look at the speedy progress made there.

In the days of slavery, American plantation owners would rape slaves.

If their wives were unhappy with the fact of their husbands desires being located elsewhere they'd make the raped slaves lives even worse by punishing them for it.

Women's solidarity toward one another is as fickle as the stereotypes paint us all.

It's much more prevalent than most can conceive and it's covert.

most men are happy for us to have rights, but have no interest in fighting for us to have (or keep) them. If it didn't impact them personally, they would not stand up for us.

^ This.
My husband is a good Nan and he loves me. But when I read the Handmaid's Tale and talked about how frightening it would be to one day wake up with no job or access to money, he couldn't quite get why that bit was so bad. Because, he'd look after me... Right?