@Callousgirl
Regarding The Handmaid’s Tale (and The Testaments, though I’ve not yet read it)...
I would like to note that Margaret Atwood is one of the most pro-feminist writers in the world. I cannot believe that Atwood, at age 79, would abandon a life-long stand on being pro-feminist in a world that doesn’t always agree with her.
Her books are not about
believing that women are sluts or “less than” anyone else. Various characters or the society in which she places them might have that attitude. But generally, the readers see the caustic irony Atwood is presenting. The Handmaid’s Tale is about how the role of women is sometimes reduced to the sexual gratification of men and to procreation - with no regard for women’s needs, desires, intelligence, physical abilities, interests - their human rights. In Atwood’s “Gilead,” there are other people who do not conform to “standards” in the dystopian mainstream, such as LGBTQ people, people who don’t follow the Gilead religion-regime and its rules, people who assist non-conformists to get by or escape to a free country. All women in Gilead are in service of some kind to one or more male figures in the male-led society - housekeepers, cooks, wives, “aunts” who teach the Handmaids what Gilead demands of them, and finally, the procreating Handmaids. The Handmaids might be called “sluts” in the books because they are basically the only women having sex - since they are the only women able to reproduce! Handmaids are forced to have sex with other women’s husbands. They bear the children from those liaisons. Then their child is taken from them and the Handmaids are sent to another man’s household to be forced to have sex and bear his child...Fighting against that society delivers people into the waiting arms of the regime, where they will be killed outright or sent to work in the toxic wastelands. Atwood is not suggesting that any of these situations is a good thing.
The Handmaid’s Tale describes horrific scenarios to make a point about what negative and callous attitudes toward women (and other “different people”)
could create. If Atwood literally said to someone, “Handmaids are sluts,” I would like to know the context. I think there would have to be something underlying it that would demonstrate irony and satire as its intention. Handmaids might be viewed by others in the books as sluts, but I don’t think many readers would consider this to be Atwood’s personal view of women or even of her Handmaids. Taken on its own, the statement sounds anti-female. That is not how Atwood is usually viewed.
I think of The Handmaid’s Tale as a “warning.” If we don’t defend the place of women (and “different people”) in the world, we could be setting the stage for our very own real-life Gilead. Atwood based her book on real-life tragedies, traumas, and trends - her “speculative fiction” set in “near futures” is terrifying because it is frighteningly feasible. We are not doomed if we listen and change as a species. I believe that is the message that Atwood wants to share. She is not “ANTI-female.” The fictional Gilead society is anti-female, but the message Atwood brings to us is that we need to be more PRO FEMALE (etc.) and pro people if the world is to improve. (I am now even more curious about where The Testaments goes.
)
These comparisons are quite eclectic. lol
