Handmaid's Tale

[herewegogc]

Anyone watching latest series? Have sobbed through the first 3 series and the parallel to the trans coerced speech hurts. Did appreciate bowies's suffragette city in so4episode 3. In fact the music throughout has been great. Meanwhile I wish it didn't seem like a documentary.

I wish they'd just made the book adaptation. I haven't been able to finish series 2, and I cant see how they will end it.

If the women 'win', it will be unrealistic. If the women 'lose' it will be more realistic but depressing, and not something that women need to see.
There's the potential for more creative, feminist endings but I don't think they are capable of imagining them.

I worry more and more about a cashless society amount other things.

Same here!
Joseph Lawrence said in tonight's episode that Gilead doesn't care about children, they only care about power. And when you look at things that are happening in western societies these days - men claiming spaces where woman and children should have privacy and safety,, rapists housed in women's prisons, women losing work because they speak about biological facts etc. etc. it brings home the fact that, as women, we can't afford to be complacent.
Every little infringement of our rights must be challenged - whether on twitter or in court.

I also worry that June having to ask Luke to sign his approval of her contraceptive prescription (series 2, I think) could be so easily become an accepted thing if we don't remain vigilant.

When I first read the book over 30 years ago, it was with a sense of recognition of the lot of women. Now, watching the tv series feels like a seeing a reality that is just out of sight. It is brutal, but then so are our lives: and if we don't fight we will end up in Gilead. As for MA - I was very disappointed with her TWAW stance, but the TV series left her behind a long time ago. It is a masterpiece - beautifully shot and acted, and totally women centred.

I agree that it is a warning. The premise of the show is that Gilead is formed from a Christian basis. As pp’s quoted Joseph Lawrence, really it is about power. The power and control of women’s reproductive capacity is part of that. It really seems that we are headed there in incremental steps but with “Wokeness” as a base philosophy. The drive for dehumanising language in relation to our bodies and bodily processes, the drive to separate mothers and babies through obstetric practices, surrogacy and attempts to minimise motherhood in law and culture, the drive to alienate women and especially young women and girls from their own bodies and push them towards the illusion of identifying out of their sex. With increasing numbers of young women being made infertile by testosterone and surgery there will no doubt be greater pressure towards the commodification of human beings through surrogacy in future.

Just think about the power relationship of a man wanting to be in an intimate space with women and women just having to submit to that. We are not permitted even to voice discomfort, concerns, fears. We must just submit to our lords and masters. We are utterly powerless in prisons, refuges, changing rooms, toilets. It isn’t such a stretch to think that the situation of Luke needing to sign a form to allow June to get contraception might come to pass. After all we are moving towards parent/family centred care instead of woman centred care, logically that puts both parents equally at the centre. Fathers will get an equal say in everything about their offspring from conception if that is the way we are headed. From equal that to deciding vote/veto and then dominant, it happens easily.

The philosophical basis changes over time and can be any religion, political system or ideology to justify patriarchal control of women because of our biology, because of our sexed bodies.

The Handmaid’s Tale reminds us of the need for vigilance but I also find it makes me think of those women in the world now suffering some of the injustices we see in the programme. We never won freedom for women, a handful of us had some respite for a few decades that is all.

Womens rights are always fragile.

There are photos of women in Kabul from the 70s in this Amnesty article. Confronting stuff, photos of women leaving university without men accompanying them, without any restrictions on their clothing. www.amnesty.org.uk/womens-rights-afghanistan-history

Women in Afghanistan didn't wake up to find their lives had changed. It was gradual but consistent, sometimes faster than others, but, always being lost.

I look at what is happening in Scotland and I think it could be the start of the same thing - obviously the aims of the people who want to take my rights away are not the same as the Taliban, thank goodness, but, I am now supposed to think that surrogacy is good, that male people's bodily discomfort and desires matter more than mine, my healthcare is inadequate and I am to accept that, and so it goes on right down to my how my body is "wrong" for society - I can't reach the top shelf of the supermarket, my seatbelt doesn't fit, my pension is reduced because I couldn't work because my kid was sick for years, my iPhone is too big for my hand and I am to accept all of that.

I love the HMT because it is beautifully written and the series is brilliantly filmed and acted and the music is inspired. And, I think it's a good reminder that women don't matter in a patriarchal society.

I'm away to donate to some crowdfunders from women who are in/going to court to defend my rights. God love them, they've got a tough job.

Well said vivariumvivariumsvivaria, I agree with you completely.

I wasn’t very up on current events regarding women’s rights when I began watching HMT, there have been too many moments in the past months when I think back to particular scenes in the first series and the similarities are just chilling.

I also find that HMT is for the most part fairly psychologically coherent and I am genuinely interested in the character development. The handmaids who are so clearly traumatised and the way Gilead allows psychopaths and narcissistic types to rise to power and act with impunity.

Thank you for starting this thread OP! I have been on the HMT thread on Telly Addicts but it is even better to discuss the series here with an explicitly feminist perspective.

obviously the aims of the people who want to take my rights away are not the same as the Taliban, thank goodness,

Do you really think so? The way it is justified is different, but the objective is the same.

Dasies | yes I too wanted a feminist perspective which is exactly why I posted here. Re the Handmaid's being traumatised - yes it is obvious that they are psychologically damaged - I was thinking that without extensive therapy there could be no way back for them. Also I interesting is the focus on the kids who were rescued - they will have known nothing different to Gilead and their 'parents'.

I think that you’re right herewegogc about the handmaids and the rescued children, often in TV and film, characters bounce back and appear to suffer no ill effects but in HMT it has become clear that there is no just going back to “normal” for them. I think at the beginning of the series, probably much like June, I was just willing her to get her family back together and it would all be fine. Of course by the current series she has been in Gilead for about 6 years I think, Hannah must be about 10 now and had lived most of her life under Gilead and separated from her parents.

I would be interested to see more about the children and how they are settling in an adjusting but there is really so much story to with HMT.

I would also like to see more of Hannah’s life, what happens at domestic arts school? How do the women of Gilead, many of whom had no idea about “domestic arts” learn to knit, sew and cook without being allowed any literacy or numeracy? How do you follow a knitting pattern or cooking recipe without reading? Especially when you have to learn some of these skills from scratch.

When I watch HMT I think of Jane Austen’s books in a new light. There are many similarities when you think about it. In the time of Jane Austen women had the option of wife, Martha, Jezebel. Not much else, they couldn’t be financially independent and relied entirely on making themselves into good prospective wives for men from childhood so that they could find the best husband possible around the age of 18-20. At least some of the women of Jane Austen’s England were allowed to read, to learn languages other than their own and to play musical instruments. The working class girls were prevented mainly by lack of resources and opportunities as no doubt were many of their brothers.

Instead of being all rose tinted about the novel’s of Jane Austen I find that I see them in a much more sinister light now. The inequalities in sex and class are brought in to sharp relief by watching something like the HMT set in modern times.

I also found myself thinking at various points watching HMT, but surely the international community would do something, they wouldn’t allow it to continue? Then of course back in the real world we have Saudi Arabia, North Korea, China and a very long list of others.

The abuse of women and their support this weekend at the Wi Spa protests certainly reflect some of the scenes in HMT of the USA in the immediate pre Gilead era.

"obviously the aims of the people who want to take my rights away are not the same as the Taliban, thank goodness,

Do you really think so? The way it is justified is different, but the objective is the same."

on loop. You are right, Jelly but it feels to awful to think about.

I do think that Greer is a visionary, “Women have very little idea of how much men hate them”. Life is less depressing when you can believe "oh, boys will be boys".

Interesting, Daisies, thanks. HAdn't thought about those parallels.

Good post Daisies. Once you see it, you can't unsee it. The yoke that women live under all over the world is there in plain sight, evidenced at a very simple level by the fact that there is NOWHERE in the whole world where it is safe for a woman to walk home alone in the dark. Nowhere.