Handmaid's Tale Response 1

The most surprising thing I learned as a read the The Handmaid's Tale was that few things in the book shocked me or seemed foreign. While this book had a bit of a 1984 feel, the theme was something very familiar: the oppression of women by a patriarchal society. All through history, women have been oppressed by men on both a governmental level and an individual level. Governments rarely had women leaders and the role of women in society was generally in the home. In many countries, women are still considered property or objects; they still suffer from few rights. Even in the United States today, women still struggle to be fully equal to men.

Another familiar historical motif was a country's response to crisis. When a country is in economic and political distress, it is not uncommon for a coup to occur. Generally, the new group in charge must find a way to assert their power to prevent further unrest. In the past, many groups have been persecuted as a part of this assertion. For instance, when Nazism rose to power in Germany, the Jews were oppressed, tortured, and murdered. This same pattern was followed in the Republic of Gilead in the book. Likewise, with their lives in turmoil due to the political shift, people often look for a way to seize some sort of control. I think that the men find this control through the women in Gilead.

It is depressing that women and men in the book allow such a social regression to occur. One of the excuses for taking rights from women is that it is for their protection. This is particularly disturbing considering the rights Americans recently surrendered during the War on Terror (Patriot Act, etc.) Ironically, the women in Gilead are supposedly being protected from rapists, yet the sex that the Handmaids are expected to have is nothing short of rape.

I think the most important thing that can be taken away from this book is the fact that nothing here is unheard of. This book represents the trials and sufferings that women are still undergoing in parts of the world through arranged marriages, restrictive clothing, and many worse customs. This also shows us what fear leads to when people allow themselves to be controlled for “protection.”