Are there any bad men in the Handmaid's Tale

[Pratchet]

Nick: lovely rescuer
Commander: offered friendship, acted pained, tried to explain
(Wife: narsty caah)
Van driver: lovely rescuer
Pilot: lovely rescuer
Econohusband: lovely rescuer
(Econo wife: mean and didn't wasn't to help)
Those foreign visitors at the end of season one - man tried to help, woman refused
Clinic assistant male: gave her key to escape

Quick question. What number episode was tonight ?

I miss the next two so need to know which episodes to catch up on

Aunt Lydias are the ultimate collaborators.

But it's that, or off to the colonies with them - hey have no power - it's the reality of a totalitarian state. Nazism for example - when you've imprisoned, hanged, shot, enough of your political opponents, people start to behave. They find ways to survive.

June says tonight "I thought that too, once" at the comment by the econowife that she would rather die than give up her baby. People will do unsavoury things, tolerate horrific stuff, to survive. Or even benefit.

Tonight was 3, I think AF.

Battlaxe: the violence by the women. Apparently they aren't allowed to quietly menacing, even though both men and women have systems of violence to enforce their authority, only female violence is shown.

I think there is definitely a torture porn element to this series, which I'm uncomfortable with. And I hated that sex scene last week - that was really poorly thought out.

So the average viewer can't understand that the Lydia's are used by the men to inflict the actual violence on women so they don't have to?

I hated that sex scene too. WTF?

Battlaxe: the violence by the women. Apparently they aren't allowed to quietly menacing, even though both men and women have systems of violence to enforce their authority, only female violence is shown.

That’s the way real power v token power works, though, isn’t it? The lower ranks kick down.

I don't know if they do or not. There's no attempt to show this: we just have to assume because as feminists we know this happens. Out there in the world of liberal feminism, where choice alone is empowering, and the context of those choices is apparently immaterial, who knows what people are reading into a series where the women are depicted as torturers and the men as rescuers?

I was responding to assassinated there.

I don’t agree with your analysis either, Pratchet.

Firstly, I agree with the majority of posters that Fred is sinister. He’s portrayed as a rapist and a zealot. What about when he raped June at Jezebel’s? That wasn’t at all ‘reluctant’. And all the other ‘nice, kind’ stuff is only about stroking his own ego. Plus, he’s one of the orchestrators of this world; of the violence, the torture, imprisonment, systematic rapes etc etc.

As for the other characters.

Serena, yes I agree she’s not a nice woman but I believe she is conflicted.

Aunt Lydia, also evil. But carrying out the orders of men.

All the other women are nice though. Rita, Emily, Janine, Moira, Alma. Even the econowife was wasn’t horrible. She was scared and (rightly) trying to protect herself and her son.

As for the nice rescuers, well, yes they were nice. But none of them were architects of Gilead, they were innocent bystanders who are now trying to help June/others. Women couldn’t possible help as they have no power, freedom or autonomy. A woman driving a van through Gilead to help with Mayday would only hinder and most certainly get everyone killed.

The men in THT have the "freedom" of movement, e.g. they can drive. Women have to be driven. Men have access of resources: cars, bikes, jobs, money. Women can only receive what they are given. If you have nothing, and have no freedom, from a pragmatic viewpoint, you have no ability to rescue.

But despite this you see acts of compassion amongst the women at times.

If you have few choices, and access to few resources, then you have to compete to survive. It's primordial. The rules were developed by men, leaving the women to fight for scraps. And fight they will in order to access more: more status, more freedom, more comfort in order to secure better chance of survival.

AL may utterly believe in Gilead - because it has given her something (power, contol, status), which she did not have before. She will do whatever it takes to protect her interests. That is how her esteem and physical being survives. That means she will inflict heinous suffering on others. Her survival is dependent on being able to do so - there is also an absence of choice for her. She, therefore, is "rescued" by the system that simultaneously has imprisoned her gender.

It's patriarchy at it's most extreme: women can only get what men deem to give them. The men will retain the bulk of the resources and freedoms for their own survival. Trading only when necessary, and only on their terms.

Simple human economics in action.

The commander’s wife’s most cruel moment was talking to June’s daughter on the steps outside the school. The most horrible acts aren’t always the most violent.

Pratchet yes I totally get what you mean.

I hadn't noticed it as I've read the book and I was bringing my own understanding of the characters to it.

But not you mention it, it's so obvious.

Yes I do understand the book, and I do understand the messages in the book. Also I understand the plot. Thank you though.

Witch: the rape at Jezebel's would be the nearest thing, yes, I agree with that

Sleeping: I got annoyed when the first series looked unbelievably like the depiction of love triangle. Possibly I was too easily annoyed but still.

Does anyone know what Margaret Atwood's involvement in the HMT season 2 is?

I've expressed my concerns that this series seems to be going down the women-suffering-porn route with DP. He naively IMO reckons it couldn't possibly go that way because MA is an exec producer.

But, how much control over it does she have? Is she involved in the writing? I know she sold the rights ages ago, she doesn't own them does she?

I got annoyed when the first series looked unbelievably like the depiction of love triangle.

Also, Serena and the Commander are too young and good looking aren't they. The commander looks too much like a suitable partner for June, in another life. He's not meant to be. He's meant to be much older than her.

I know she's an adviser? But that's it. I think I read an interview which suggested she felt rather privileged to be involved.

The tv series does now seemed geared to get a larger audience with the filming trying to capture more male audience. Most of the women are in self preservation mode but the graphic shots do seem to be woman on woman. They are quick to show the aunt Lydia cruelty without showing the consequences she would face if she didn’t play her role.

Yes yes. The commander is like some hipster brodude. You mainly pick up how awful he is from June's reaction.

Boulshired: I was just thinking, it would not be hard to show the aunts being punished physically by the men. Or some totally unjust male tribunal sitting in judgement. Or the commander hitting serena.

It would, pratchet. We had a wife sent to the colonies last week - perhaps we will see more of Aunt Lydia. I hope so, actually.

Reading the book (oh, so many years ago) always left me wanting to know more - deliberately, I've always assumed. It's an incredible, perfect stand alone novel. But I must confess, I've enjoyed a lot of the filling in of the gaps in the TV series.

I liked seeing an econowife this week - they were a mere mention in the book. They, I would think, are in a very precarious position - if they set a foot wrong, it's 'handmaiden' for them. So I guess it's understandable why she was horrible to June.

Plus, perhaps, in order to live, it's easier for her to put some blame on the handmaids themselves, for their own predicament. Victim blaming - hell, doesn't that happen to women in all walks of life now?

The wife being poisoned by Emily - it's a cautionary tale in itself isn't it?

She says 'you held down a handmaid while your husband raped her" - she did, and then fell foul of the system. Justice was harsh, and meted out by someone who had suffered by her (the wife's) collaboration. She paid the price of collaboration, at the hands of someone in the group that had suffered.

I think this is a really interesting question. One of the ways patriarchy flourishes, is by getting women to do its dirty work for it.

So in China, it was the mother and aunts who broke the feet of the little girls and bound them. In various cultures where FGM is practised, before modern medicine (and still in many places) it was a woman in the village who performed the ritual. The Magdalen houses were run by nuns, not priests.

The men could pretend they had nothing to do with it. The fact that the mothers were mutilating their girls because the only way their girls would find a husband, was if they were mutilated, (because men insisted on broken feet, mutilated clitori etc.) could go unnoticed. It looks like it's women who are responsible for the violence, because they're administering it. The fact that they're administering it on behalf of men, is disguised.

It's how all dictatorships behave. They select individual people from the oppressed class and give them privileges on the proviso that they do their dirty work so that they can remain loftily above it. If they stop doing it, they soon find themselves back in the oppressed class, but marked as traitors so even worse off.

Margaret Atwood was on Book Club on Radio 4 today, might be worth a listen.