It does seem to be a peculiarly contrived system, and I also have a lot of questions as to how it came into being.
As I recall from my reading, Atwood wrote the story in response to a strange political alliance that was taking place at the time between hardcore right-wing Christian and hardcore left-wing feminist women, on the subject of pornography - both groups found it degrading and antithetical to their principles, so they often protested it together. Atwood's point was largely to be careful whom you (figuratively) get in bed with, and not to let political expediency give power to those whose values are antithetical to your own.
So to a degree, I get that it's meant as an allegory rather than a real-life possibility. But (much as in the Hunger Games books) there are a lot of things that don't really add up. One of the most jarring was the presence of tourists, as described by Offred towards the beginning - generally, societies this restrictive (they don't even let women read) either ban or strictly control tourists, to maintain the "purity" of the culture (because allowing a suppressed people to be confronted with freer alternatives but no way to even theoretically attain them foments discontent and eventually rebellion).
I definitely see what you mean about it seeming class-blind - there seems to be this assumption that all the women in the story (whether they're wives or Marthas or Aunts or Handmaids) were at least middle-class and college educated in their previous lives. Which is sort of frustrating - there's a whole strain of sociology left unexplored here. What happened to (say) the women who were struggling socioeconomically due to having had lots of children? Are they perhaps happier as Handmaids, in a (somewhat) socially elevated role due to their proven fertility? I note that there's no overt racial aspect in the Republic of Gilead's dogma, but there does seem to be an assumption that everyone is white - perhaps women of color were shipped off to "the Colonies"?
I think I have a little more sympathy for the perspective of "depending on the tone of public discourse, something like this can happen" after the political shifts of the past year. How stable it would be would depend largely on how afraid the populace was of further change; the mention of "the wars" seems at least a nod to the necessity of an outside force keeping people scared. And then there's simply the fear that comes leaving with any oppressive system, of losing your entire social support network.
I do like how Atwood portrays Offred's gradually deepening realization at how she's normalizing the new situation, even as determined as she is to survive it. If anything, the two are probably related - normalization is a survival mechanism, as is sympathizing with one's oppressors. And I particularly like how she contrasts the Aunts' promises of a society with freedom from rape or sexual harassment with Offred's lived experience of covert-but-still-consistent propositions, as well as the strange dynamics of her relationship with the Commander. It's a nice illustration of how the weird twinned "men as protectors, women as protected" dynamic fundamentally also perpetrates the "women as sex objects, men as success objects" assumption.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2017-05-19 12:55 am (UTC)As I recall from my reading, Atwood wrote the story in response to a strange political alliance that was taking place at the time between hardcore right-wing Christian and hardcore left-wing feminist women, on the subject of pornography - both groups found it degrading and antithetical to their principles, so they often protested it together. Atwood's point was largely to be careful whom you (figuratively) get in bed with, and not to let political expediency give power to those whose values are antithetical to your own.
So to a degree, I get that it's meant as an allegory rather than a real-life possibility. But (much as in the Hunger Games books) there are a lot of things that don't really add up. One of the most jarring was the presence of tourists, as described by Offred towards the beginning - generally, societies this restrictive (they don't even let women read) either ban or strictly control tourists, to maintain the "purity" of the culture (because allowing a suppressed people to be confronted with freer alternatives but no way to even theoretically attain them foments discontent and eventually rebellion).
I definitely see what you mean about it seeming class-blind - there seems to be this assumption that all the women in the story (whether they're wives or Marthas or Aunts or Handmaids) were at least middle-class and college educated in their previous lives. Which is sort of frustrating - there's a whole strain of sociology left unexplored here. What happened to (say) the women who were struggling socioeconomically due to having had lots of children? Are they perhaps happier as Handmaids, in a (somewhat) socially elevated role due to their proven fertility? I note that there's no overt racial aspect in the Republic of Gilead's dogma, but there does seem to be an assumption that everyone is white - perhaps women of color were shipped off to "the Colonies"?
I think I have a little more sympathy for the perspective of "depending on the tone of public discourse, something like this can happen" after the political shifts of the past year. How stable it would be would depend largely on how afraid the populace was of further change; the mention of "the wars" seems at least a nod to the necessity of an outside force keeping people scared. And then there's simply the fear that comes leaving with any oppressive system, of losing your entire social support network.
I do like how Atwood portrays Offred's gradually deepening realization at how she's normalizing the new situation, even as determined as she is to survive it. If anything, the two are probably related - normalization is a survival mechanism, as is sympathizing with one's oppressors. And I particularly like how she contrasts the Aunts' promises of a society with freedom from rape or sexual harassment with Offred's lived experience of covert-but-still-consistent propositions, as well as the strange dynamics of her relationship with the Commander. It's a nice illustration of how the weird twinned "men as protectors, women as protected" dynamic fundamentally also perpetrates the "women as sex objects, men as success objects" assumption.