Racism rather the sexism in The Handmaid's Tale

[RedDeerRunning]

Long time lurker on these boards and NC for this post.

Margaret Atwood is trending on twitter because of her nonsensical conflation of sex and gender and her invocation of fish science to prove humans can change sex.

I am pretty surprised at the outrage tbh. From the feminist response on Twitter, it would appear that few have actually read The Handmaid’s Tale. Whilst the recent dramatisation has entered into the public consciousness, and ensure ‘Gilead’,’ Handmaid’, ‘Aunt Lydia’ have all become common terms, the original book is underpinned by unconscious racism.

At the heart of the book is the issue that falling fertility rates affect white women only. Black and Native women are not affected by this fictional disease and the policing of white women’s fertility is in order to ensure the continuation of the white race. Atwood makes no comment on this, nor offers any scientific/ medical theory as to why only white women are affected. This would suggest to me a grotesque dehumanisation of Black women as ‘other’.

In fact, the story is so inherently racist that the producers of the TV adaptation had to enage in ‘colourblind casting’ to prevent the show being blindsided by the racist ideology.

It would seem that Atwood is no friend of women, and is particularly dismissive of the lived experiences of Black and Indigenous women. The very notion of a disease that only affects white women, whilst scientifically nonsensical, is also racist AF.

I am shocked and ashamed to say that I hadn’t realised that, about The Handmaid’s Tale!

Atwood is no friend of women? How much Atwood have you actually read, OP?

Isnt the point that Gilead is supposed to be a white mans theocracy and non-whites are viewed as lesser beings?

I'll have to re-read the book because I'm not sure how much I remember from the book versus Season 1 of the tv programme.

Aren't all black people shipped off to the Labour camps in the novel? Been decades since I read it but my memory is that Atwood exposes the racism of the ultra right religious in their overt erasure of black citizens. My understanding of this aspect being left out of tv series was that the audience would not be able to tolerate such an extreme depiction of the cruelty of fundamentalist ideologies on black people, yet that same treatment of women would be acceptable as entertainment.

I don't agree with what she's saying on Twitter, but I don't think she's racist by any measure. To be honest I'm sick of the current fashion for tweezering out perceived racism from any and every mention of race. See the current thread on Tammy Duckworth for example.

So it would be ok if the cause of the fertility issue wasn't raised, so long as it didn't involve a racial difference?

I think that's reaching for a stick to beat someone with. Some sci-fi likes to go into technical and scientific information, but Atwood has never written that way. Arguably she's not a sci-fi writer at all and I don't see how a made-up explanation for the scenario would add anything to the story.

@Pertella

Isnt the point that Gilead is supposed to be a white mans theocracy and non-whites are viewed as lesser beings?

Indeed this is the theme, but the racist construction is not really challenged and the injustice is firmly rooted through the perspective of white women only. The dehumanisation of people of colour is waved through (rather like the proles in 1984).

My memory - and I haven't seen the TV series at all - is that, as PP says, Gilead is white only as Gilead is racist. I'm not sure how that shows MA is.

@unwashedanddazed

Aren't all black people shipped off to the Labour camps in the novel? Been decades since I read it but my memory is that Atwood exposes the racism of the ultra right religious in their overt erasure of black citizens. My understanding of this aspect being left out of tv series was that the audience would not be able to tolerate such an extreme depiction of the cruelty of fundamentalist ideologies on black people, yet that same treatment of women would be acceptable as entertainment.

I don't agree with what she's saying on Twitter, but I don't think she's racist by any measure. To be honest I'm sick of the current fashion for tweezering out perceived racism from any and every mention of race. See the current thread on Tammy Duckworth for example.

Yeah, the regime is clearly a racist one and is depicted as such.

I didn't watch the show, but it may also have been that they didn't want to add complexity. It's fairly normal for television adaptations to focus down to only a few narrative strands or themes. But I really don't see how you could saw the story thinks the race element is irrelevant - if it was, why not just have made the disease affect everyone equally?

Oh for heaven's sake. Atwood has said quite clearly everything in the novel has actually occurred in history. It presents a white supremacist theocracy echoing apartheid in South Africa etc. It's a novel, readers are supposed to interpret it. Believe me no one when that book was written interpreted it as a defence of racism.
Are you really saying white women novelists shouldn't centre white women. Of course if they don't they're then guilty of cultural appropriation or having the nerve to arrogantly speak on behalf of black women.
I've really had enough of this.

I thought the plummeting fertility rates were due to a natural disaster and radiation?

The book talks about the children of Ham being ‘settled’ in a new homeland which I took to mean that all black & minority ethnic people had gone to some sort of concentration camps & would most likely die.

I was very surprised to see that element removed from the TV show. I’m sure the film included it

I get what you're saying, OP. We studied THT at school and the treatment of non-whites was barely mentioned. It's obvious Atwood couldn't have written the same novel today without putting more emphasis on the racial segregation aspects.

Imnobody4

Indeed.

I don't understand why you think it is racist to write a novel where there are racists?

I remember when South Africa made it really easy for white people to immigrate so that they wouldn't have to open up better jobs to non-whites.

I think Gilead is portrayed as a racist society and this element is not discussed enough. It is also definitely not a main focus in the novel itself.

However I don't think you can draw from this that Atwood herself is a racist.

She had obviously said something that had annoyed people regarding gender. I don't think it's necessary to cast around for other criticisms to throw at her.

Atwood has said quite clearly everything in the novel has actually occurred in history. It presents a white supremacist theocracy echoing apartheid in South Africa etc.

And when the book was published in 1985, apartheid was not history.

I can't comment on how the book affects people now, but if people do feel that the book is racist, I don't think its fair to say that the racism is intentional.

It would seem that Atwood is no friend of women, and is particularly dismissive of the lived experiences of Black and Indigenous women.

Again, I can't comment, but without experience of the lived experiences of black and indigenous woman, and writing in the early 1980s, how would she have bridged this gap?

The book talks about the children of Ham being ‘settled’ in a new homeland which I took to mean that all black & minority ethnic people had gone to some sort of concentration camps & would most likely die.

I remember that too. We don't hear much about what happens to them, because everything is from Offred's viewpoint. It's pretty obvious Atwood doesn't think this was a good thing!

I don't remember anything about only white women being effected by the infertility plague, but it's been a while since I read the book. The Gilead authorities might have claimed that was the case, but they're not exactly reliable witnesses. They refused to believe that men too could be infertile, because that went against their philosophy.

Writers make artistic decisions. The choice of a first person narrative from someone's experience in the dystopian society is what makes it so powerful. Writer's write the book they choose to write, the fact they didn't write a different story is not a valid criticism.

It's not just from Offred's perspective but from her timeline Offred has been living in the Gilead system for 2 or 3 years under indoctrination.

The children of HAM is an afterthought for her because it's the new normal of her situation of living in an all white society.

There's 1000's of students who study this text at A Level for years and racism is certainly an element that was taught.

I'm beyond disappointed in Margaret Atwoods fish comments but her body of work is some of the most important in feminist non fiction.

harpers.org/a-letter-on-justice-and-open-debate/

Signed by both Rowling and Atwood.

@Imnobody4

Writers make artistic decisions. The choice of a first person narrative from someone's experience in the dystopian society is what makes it so powerful. Writer's write the book they choose to write, the fact they didn't write a different story is not a valid criticism.

Well, there goes 90% of people's criticisms of books these days.

@Bobbybobbins

I think Gilead is portrayed as a racist society and this element is not discussed enough. It is also definitely not a main focus in the novel itself.

However I don't think you can draw from this that Atwood herself is a racist.

She had obviously said something that had annoyed people regarding gender. I don't think it's necessary to cast around for other criticisms to throw at her.

So she should have shoehorned more about it to satisfy...? What would have bene the purpose of that?

It was a full length novel with a story that was already complex at times, both jumping back and forth in time and because it only reveals what was happening as you read and many things remained mysterious.

I sometimes see this demand in fandoms now that any thread in a story left unexplained or opened needs to be tied in and explicated. Is this similar?

Long time lurker on these boards and NC for this post.

Why, out of curiosity?

I wonder why JKR is the only one where they didmt say what she does?

@Goosefoot

No, nothing else should be shoehorned in. I think the novel is a work of art as it is.

I was just agreeing with that aspect of the OP's post - that it is not a theme that is fully developed. Which is fine!