ShalimarGirl

Maybe Serena will follow Mrs. Putnam’s lead and testify against Fred, asking for the harshest possible punishment for him while painting herself as a victim of his depravity and abuse, begging for mercy and the chance to raise “her” baby whom he tried to harm at least once? June has already told Aunt Lydia that she’s afraid Fred was a danger to the baby but, by saying any man who would hurt a woman would hurt a child, she left out the fact that Serena is a also a monster. Agreeing to keep June around to nurse the baby is a small price to pay to stay alive and keep the baby. It would also keep our protagonists together for a while and buy some time for another escape plan next season.

You know, as soon as I posted that using the concept of statutory rape, I felt like I should go back and edit it out. It is a modern legal term in the real world and I have been trying my best to focus my comments only on what’s been shown or said on the show and in this episode in particular, so I probably should have left it out, but Eden didn’t have any choice or say in what happened to her so I still think it’s a grey area. The fact that someone else gave her consent, in this case I presume it was the State, is what I was trying to get at. I apologize for derailing the conversation by using a term strictly associated with age. I grew up in a place where arranged marriages are traditional, though they’re perceived to be a lot more common in the West than they really are, and I do consider it a civilized place, so thank you for acknowledging that. But just because they happen in a place I love or among populations that are considered “very civilized” doesn’t make them advantageous, enjoyable or safe for the women who are forced into them. They are very often physically, emotionally and sexually abused with little to no legal recourse because they are seen as the property of their husband (and their husband’s family) and the concept of marital rape doesn’t exist to protect them under the law. I think these things are also true in Gilead. If the writers were being faithful to what’s been established about the reign of the Sons of Jacob she would already have been dealt with harshly for failing to be an obedient wife and she would know that given that her family survived the “revolution” and have a daughter who is considered good or pure enough to be selected for marriage to an up and coming young Guardian. Her actions are more like a character in a teen drama who found out her boyfriend is cheating on her with the school sl*t and has decided to make out with the local “bad boy” to make him jealous and maybe beat him up on her say so, something we can all see will end in disaster from a mile away. As I’ve said, I think we already have plenty of female villains and I’m sad that they’ve created one so young who found herself in such an untenable situation through no fault or choice of her own and I’ve been bothered by how many people want to see Eden drowned or strung up on the wall. On the other hand, history and literature is rife with examples of ”innocent” young women pointing fingers and bearing false witness against each other in order to secure their own place, deflect guilt and inflict punishment on other young women. If this was 17th century Salem and she was accusing June of witchcraft I probably wouldn’t bat an eye, at least not if her character was developed and her actions were consistent with time and place. I don’t see that with Eden which frustrates me. Like Jessica Rabbit - she’s not bad, she’s just (written) that way. And as so many others have said, I’m really disappointed with the general lack of character development and world building this season. I’m also just getting really sad and angry at RapeTV and it’s not just this show, it’s everywhere.

I can, too. Rape is about violence, power, humiliation and control. Nothing else, no penis required. Everything we need to know about why they did it was said in the greenhouse. Serena thought June enjoyed embarrassing her with her false labor in front of her “friends” and Fred said she had forgotten her place. They were angry and decided to punish her.

I hate the fact that they’ve chosen to invent a 15 year girl to be yet another villain here. We already have enough death, rape, dismemberment, torture and oppression of women at the hands of other women, so why introduce a very young woman as the one who’s “hormones” (you know how hysterical the ladies get, amirite?) may bring about the downfall of our main protagonists. Eden is a victim. She was taken away from her family, married to a stranger and gets statutorily raped at least once a month by a guy who can’t even be bothered to spare a kind word or a smile in her direction. Aside from that, her actions in this episode don’t make any sense. Whether her parents were true believers or regular people who did what they had to in order to survive, the results should be the same in that she knows and understands the rules of Gilead and what happens to people who break them. Why would Serena Joy tell her “lust” between a husband and wife isn’t a sin when we’ve been shown that it is? Remember when Fred had e.d. during a rape “ceremony” and she tried to help him and again when they were hot for each other after the Mexican ambassadors visit? He stopped her both times and later told her that she brought sin into their home on her knees and on her back (I would have to rewatch for the exact quote). Eden seemed to understand that on her wedding night, so I can’t understand where “you never touch me unless you have to” comes from. Isn’t that the LAW in Gilead that you don’t touch unless you have to and the only reason you have to is to make a baby? Punishable by losing a hand or worse? If they’re supposed to have perfunctory, procreation only sex through a sheet and her husband is her “master” who can whip her for insolence (or worse) how did she suddenly get so bold? It’s not like she really knows Nick and can feel secure speaking to him that way. And the way she romanticized her first kiss then tried to use “cheating” on him to provoke a reaction seemed more like something from a soap opera, disney movie or Seventeen magazine than anything she would have learned in the Gilead Pictograph Manual for Young Econo-wives. And are we supposed to believe that she’s unaware of the consequences of kissing Isaac or is it just those uncontrollable 15 year old girl hormones at work again? What if Fred had seen them? I’m sure he would use that as leverage to start raping her on the regular lest she end up on the wall. But honestly, I think Isaac is probably the person she is in the greatest danger from and she doesn’t even realize it. She knows Nick saw them so Isaac probably knows, too. Too many people have seen them being friendly together for any kind of plausible deniability, and we’ve already seen how cruel he is, so I’m sure he’ll simply accuse her of seducing him. If/when Nick comes back I’m willing to bet she will be blamed as the jezebel who distracted him from his guard duties which afforded Nick and June the opportunity to “escape.” I’m sure Fred wants to be rid of Nick and would be more than happy to go along with that version if Nick is still alive. The only hope Eden has at this point is possibly being pregnant, though that’s not exactly a blessing in Gilead.

A few things in this episode gave me the impression that maybe Eden has seen an example of a relatively “normal” and loving relationship in her parents marriage. My understanding is that they are an Econo-family who managed to survive the Gilead revolution intact and if Hanna remembers it, at least the detail of her mother being hit on the head when she was ripped from her arms, Eden must remember some things from “before” and she’s probably heard her parents talking more than they think. Her expectations of companionship and affection are too telling to me. If she had grown up in a truly Gileadean home she would have no illusions of her place and wouldn’t dare to ask her husband for more than the monthly minimum, let alone desire touching, kissing and being made to feel wanted. How could she be so bold as to ask to have her needs met if she truly understood that in Gilead sex was for procreation only and all else was forbidden, on pain of losing a hand or worse, if she had never seen that kind of affection can exist in a marriage? Her use of the word “cheating” to describe her interactions with Isaac also struck me as odd, or at least very secular. I would expect a true believer to see that as adultery and name it as such. Also very telling to me was when she told Rita that her Mom always made her Dad take out the trash. What woman in Gilead “makes” a man do anything? It seems to me, from the scant clues we have, that her parents might have had a partnership of equals that they tried to hide for the sake of keeping themselves and their children alive. It worked well enough for a while but now that Eden is out on her own she’s having a hard time reconciling what she saw in the privacy of their Econo-home with the reality of what she’s living now. I’m sure her parents tried to prepare her as best the could for what was to come, and had she been assigned to someone like Isaac (loathsome as he is) and set up in her own little Econo-apartment like we saw earlier in the season, who knows? Maybe those crazy kids could have made it work. But being dropped into the hornet’s nest that is the Waterford household she stands no chance and it makes me angry. I feel like as viewers we have been manipulated into hating a 15 year old girl who hasn’t done anything wrong except wonder, in the only terms she knows, why her husband can’t stand the sight of her. The fact that so many people have been actively rooting for Eden to be drown or hung on the wall because her desire for a little affection might endanger our precious June really saddens me. I know it’s June’s story, but Eden is every bit as much a victim of Gilead as she is except she lacks the maturity and perspective to really understand her predicament.