I am currently taking a political science course, Politics through Film and Fiction. I just finished the fiction novel by Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale. It was written in the mid-80's. The book is a strongly feminist dystopia. Atwood's dystopian society is based firmly in a religious patriarchy.
The start of the new society is the catastrophe- the president is shot and the Congress is machine-gunned. The media blamed it on Islamic extremists. The Army declares a state of emergency and suspends the Constitution. (It sounds just a little too familiar already...)
The next step in the process was to take away all rights of women. They were immediately dismissed from their jobs, and all accounts were suspended, but men could use their cards. This edged into martial law to stop from marches and protests, with armed riot gear guards patrolling. The single women were stripped of their children, and sent to a Rachel and Leah Re-education Center. If you don't remember your bible stories, Rachel and Leah were sisters, both married to their first cousin Jacob.
If the Commanders, the highest men, had wives who could no longer reproduce, they received a Handmaid to try to impregnate. The sex was very technical. It was about conception. The wife was there, possibly to make sure it was so technical and not in any way romantic.
Some couples were married and bear their own children. Most were econowives, the lower budgeted couples. The women in this place had no say. The non-white women were Marthas- maids and cooks. If the white women were not surrogates, they were sometimes prostitutes. That was an underworld that only the Commanders, Officials, and international businessmen knew about. If the women didn't fit those molds, they were sent to work in "the colonies," cleaning up toxic waste or hazardous material.
Obviously, abortion was no longer an issue, unless a baby was born with deformities or illnesses. It was considered to be moral to not put the children into such pain.
Almost more demoralizing than the rape of the handmaids was the lack of identity. When a woman was moved into a home to be a surrogate, she took on the name of the Commander- Ofglen, Ofwarren, Offred. The women were not allowed to talk about the days before, including their names. It would be a treason of sorts, penalized deeply.
This book is a little frightful, as I see rights have been taken away. Women's health coverage is faltering. (Men can get some insurance coverage for Viagra, but women can't get any coverage for birth control pills?!) Contraception of any sort can be denied by pharmacists. The definition of abortion includes the Morning After pill, although some say it prevents contraception, and therefore is not an abortion.
Why does this freak me out so bad right now? I checked the planned parenthood website this morning to find an article about the new HHS rules. Have you heard? ATTENTION WOMEN! READ THIS:
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7742/
I got tickly in my tummy when I read about it! It sounds right up my alley, AND you got to read and analyze Margaret Atwood! I am jealous.
"Never go with a hippy to a second location."
~Jack Donaghy
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
I *had* to read that, Brave New World, The Librarian (I highly recommend that to any conspiracy theorists out there!), Looking Backward, and Breakfast of Champions. "Network" was one of the movies I *had* to watch! One of my favorites!!!
It does kind of suck I don't get to read books I like otherwise. The whole writing a paper kind of puts a damper on things too. It's so worth it though.
My other class is also political science (I think it was the whole working for the campaign that inspired me)- Social Movements. Pretty cool, but once you've been involved in them, it kind of sucks to deconstruct everything about them.
-Sonja :)
YES WE DID