Beyond the Wall: The Culture of The Handmaid's Tale

[red12]

I'm behind on the episodes so, I just watched "Other Women". The scene with Luke's first wife and June in combination with the scene of June overhearing Luke  saying how his first wife means nothing; especially in light of casting all other couples with a black person as interracial. Ugh. They really need more non-white decision makers in the room on this thing.

Edited June 25, 2018 by red12

[NoSpam]

On 6/21/2018 at 12:34 PM, red12 said:

I'm behind on the episodes so, I just watched "Other Women". The scene with Luke's first wife and him saying how she means nothing; especially in light of casting all other couples with a black person as interracial. Ugh. They really need more non-white decision makers in the room on this thing.

Thank you!

 

I'm not black but I was really offended by that comment of Luke's. "June's white so she must be right."

Edited June 23, 2018 by NoSpam

[Keirams]

On 6/5/2017 at 3:41 PM, Stillhoping said:

I have a real logistic problem with the Boston setting... All the Irish Americans....the Southies.  Catholics .  and then the progressive liberal university people...and old money rich peeps.   Why Boston?

I can imagine the fundamental Bible thumping in a Southern state but not Boston. What happened to all the pubs?

I know I need to just go with it, but I have a hard time with this post-America Gilead society totally dumping Jesus.  I mean all those Jesus lovers of all Christian faiths all over the US would be okay to just forget the Jesus part of the bible?  The whole religion seems very Old Testament aka freaky/extreme Jewish.  

[dleighg]

well fundamentalist religions of all stripes do seem to be more into the "thou shalt not" rather than the "thou shalt." But yeah, you'd think Boston would be a tough sell for this brand of religion.

[Roseanna]

On ‎7‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 8:24 PM, NorthstarATL said:

her genes seem to be recessive, as the child she gave birth to looks nothing like her, so she would be perfect for a world where any progeny would be easy enough to pass off as not hers. 

That the eldest child doesn't look like her mother, is no guarantee that the second child couldn't. 

[Roseanna]

On ‎6‎.‎6‎.‎2017 at 12:57 AM, EC Amber said:

According to an interview she gave to the New York Times, Atwood made this choice because of the region's Puritan background and history of intolerance:

"You often hear in North America, "It can't happen here," but it happened quite early on. The Puritans banished people who didn't agree with them, so we would be rather smug to assume that the seeds are not there. That's why I set the book in Cambridge."

I don't think that what happened in Cambridge in the 17th century is a very valid reason. Instead, opposing "It'can't happen here" is such. Setting the story in the Bible belt wouldn make it seem "doesn't concern us".

However, I wonder why in the US that differed religion from the state in her constitution people are more religious that in Western Europe? Also, why in a state that is leading in science which is based on reason, there are so many people that believe in Creationism?    

[Roseanna]

On ‎9‎.‎5‎.‎2017 at 11:44 PM, Eyes High said:

The baby graphic chart in 1x01 showed either a birthrate decline or a decline in (I assume US) births between 1960 and 2015 of 95%. That would mean that the birthrate would have dropped from 24 births to a 1.2 births per 1,000 population (as a point of comparison, the lowest national birthrate in the real world is six births per 1,000 population) or 215,000 US live births overall (compared to 3.9 million live births in real world US 2016). Of those live births, only one in five births result in viable babies in the show, so the real number is more like 0.24 viable US births per 1,000 population, or 43,000 viable US births per year. For the whole country.

If things really got to be that bad, and in the show universe it seems as if they did (June fretting about five women at her office having late-term miscarriages, the empty hospital nursery, etc.), then it's no wonder the Commanders and Wives were willing to handwave their preference for white babies.

But if the problem is low fertility, the system of hand-maids is a bad solution. It's likely to produce a few children because many Commanders are probably infertile.

Instead, fertile women and men could have benefits by getting more children and they could also be paid to donate or even be ordered to hand over eggs and sperm to create to test tube childen for infertile couples.    

[Umbelina]

Anyone else kind of shudder that THE BOSTON GLOBE started the campaign or movement to counteract attacks on the press, and that their editorial is titled Journalists are not the enemy today? 

It's giving me some scary flashbacks to the show, and Elizabeth discovering all the dead in the Boston Globe. 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Umbelina

[Umbelina]

Sperm Count Dropping in Western World  The trend has occurred over 40 years\

Quote

LONDON (Reuters) - Sperm counts in men from America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand have dropped by more than 50 percent in less than 40 years, researchers said on Tuesday.

Sperm Count Zero

Quote

A strange thing has happened to men over the past few decades: We’ve become increasingly infertile, so much so that within a generation we may lose the ability to reproduce entirely. What’s causing this mysterious drop in sperm counts—and is there any way to reverse it before it’s too late?

[Umbelina]

Sperm Count Zero

Quote

A strange thing has happened to men over the past few decades: We’ve become increasingly infertile, so much so that within a generation we may lose the ability to reproduce entirely. What’s causing this mysterious drop in sperm counts—and is there any way to reverse it before it’s too late?

The least controversial of the current news reminding me of The Handmaid's Tale.

Quote

Within a generation, we may lose the ability to reproduce entirely.

Edited October 12, 2018 by Umbelina

[Umbelina]

Oklahoma Lawmaker: Men Must Approve Abortion; Women Are ‘Hosts’

I understand that they feel like that is their body. I feel like it is a separate — what I call them is, is you’re a ‘host.’

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/progressivesecularhumanist/2017/02/oklahoma-lawmaker-men-must-approve-abortion-women-hosts/?fbclid=IwAR1iQzIWOnRXxk1pl1BJL0yUII6RbHXkOkdJMBCvhlGZBDkzwp9803GiO7M

[Hanahope]

One thing that occurs to me if there was such a huge change in the culture of women having virtually no rights at all, is just how it must have hugely affected the economy.  Certainly the economy as we know it now, would absolutely collapse.  People wouldn't be able to afford their mortgages and other expenses of daily living on just the man's salary in many instances.  Student loans would never get repaid (at least for the women).  Most other credit card, medical and other bills would never get repaid.

So did everyone get to start with a clean slate, no debt, the home in the name of the husband (and would all those deeds need to be changed, or just destroyed and new one's created)?  How would that affect banks?  do they even exist if food is bought with tokens?  Does Gillead not use money at all?  How does it trade with other countries?  Wouldn't China have totally lost their shit with the billions owed to it?

Gillead did more than just change who runs the government.  It should have had huge consequences.

 

[Anela]

On 1/23/2020 at 5:16 PM, Hanahope said:

One thing that occurs to me if there was such a huge change in the culture of women having virtually no rights at all, is just how it must have hugely affected the economy.  Certainly the economy as we know it now, would absolutely collapse.  People wouldn't be able to afford their mortgages and other expenses of daily living on just the man's salary in many instances.  Student loans would never get repaid (at least for the women).  Most other credit card, medical and other bills would never get repaid.

So did everyone get to start with a clean slate, no debt, the home in the name of the husband (and would all those deeds need to be changed, or just destroyed and new one's created)?  How would that affect banks?  do they even exist if food is bought with tokens?  Does Gillead not use money at all?  How does it trade with other countries?  Wouldn't China have totally lost their shit with the billions owed to it?

Gillead did more than just change who runs the government.  It should have had huge consequences.

 

Bumping because @EllaWycliffe mentioned this on the thread for the last episode.  

[Hanahope]

Well, we certainly have actual evidence of what happens to the economy when women stop working (because of child care needs).

[Cinnabon]

6 hours ago, Hanahope said:

Well, we certainly have actual evidence of what happens to the economy when women stop working (because of child care needs).

And the evidence that it’s STILL the women instead of the men doing so.

[EllaWycliffe]

On 6/24/2021 at 3:17 PM, Cinnabon said:

And the evidence that it’s STILL the women instead of the men doing so.

Ah but here's the justification for that. Women traditionally make less. If one parent has to stay home, should it be the dad with a high paying job or the mom, who likely already was "mommy tracked" at work when she had the kids and took time off? Happens all the time - at my own workplace, a coworker lost out on promotional opportunities because she was on leave with her first baby. And sure enough, now that she's back, she can only take opportunities that work with her day care set up and gets turned down because she missed out on opportunities that happened while she was on maternity leave. None of this is discrimination per se - she's not being restricted by the company from applying for new opportunities because she had a baby... but because she has a baby, she's not as likely to promote to better paying work. 

Now, that doesn't mean that ripping all women from the work force still wouldn't be economically devastating. In Gilead women cook and clean, and apparently be prostitutes, but they're essentially out of the work force. Except maybe Aunts, and thats problematic. 

So who is doing everything? It's not like Gilead can hire Mexicans to do all the grunt work AND Gilead tends to murder everyone who looks cross eyed at them. And they kill all the male gays apparently - thats ten percent of the male population, AND they have to have a LOT of men as guardians to keep everyone else in line. There's no way they have a functional economy.

*Aunts being an exception really doesn't work if the men really want control. There's no way Aunts can be highly trusted, simply by being allowed to read, they have access to information. Its genuinely hard to believe that Aunts don't have male supervisors keeping a very close eye on them.

[laprin]

This has likely been answered here, but I can’t find it. Does the book address what happens when a Wife is widowed. Are Wives with children allowed to stay with their kids? 

[EllaWycliffe]

The books don't address it. 

[crashdown]

One of the things I really love is just how important names are in this show, particularly in the world of the handmaids. There are certain scenes that are extremely effective just because first names instead of the handmaid designations are used. Off the top of my head, here are few that I really like:

• Serena has called June "June" twice, as far as I recall. The first time was transactional--she wanted something from June (she was trying to convince June to call Luke so Serena could visit Nichole). The second time was an involuntary expression of real concern when Serena saw how sick June was in her hospital vigil for Ofmatthew. 
• The handmaids told each other their real names in Loaves and Fishes when Janine and Emily returned from the Colonies. That was the real beginning of their working together as a quasi-Mayday.
• When June is leaving Lawrence's house before setting off with the Angel's Flight kids, she calls him Joseph and he calls her June.
• June switches from "Mrs. Waterford" to "Serena" to help her express her feelings--she's "Mrs. Waterford" when June wants to project disapproval and/or distance, and she's "Serena" when they have an actual connection or when June is trying to reach her.
• June never calls Waterford "Fred," ever.
• June tells Aunt Lydia that "You know my fucking name." Aunt Lydia is always careful to keep "June" and "Offred" separate: June is an unredeemable fallen woman, but Offred has a chance to be useful. However, when June is holding the gun to Aunt Lydia, she says "Don't do it, June," and that works. 
• When June is attacking Aunt Lydia during the post-capture torture scenes, June ultimately calls her "Lydia." That rattles Aunt Lydia enormously, more than anything else that June has said or done.

Anyone else interested in any of this?

[Scarlett45]

16 minutes ago, crashdown said:

One of the things I really love is just how important names are in this show, particularly in the world of the handmaids. There are certain scenes that are extremely effective just because first names instead of the handmaid designations are used. Off the top of my head, here are few that I really like:

• Serena has called June "June" twice, as far as I recall. The first time was transactional--she wanted something from June (she was trying to convince June to call Luke so Serena could visit Nichole). The second time was an involuntary expression of real concern when Serena saw how sick June was in her hospital vigil for Ofmatthew. 
• The handmaids told each other their real names in Loaves and Fishes when Janine and Emily returned from the Colonies. That was the real beginning of their working together as a quasi-Mayday.
• When June is leaving Lawrence's house before setting off with the Angel's Flight kids, she calls him Joseph and he calls her June.
• June switches from "Mrs. Waterford" to "Serena" to help her express her feelings--she's "Mrs. Waterford" when June wants to project disapproval and/or distance, and she's "Serena" when they have an actual connection or when June is trying to reach her.
• June never calls Waterford "Fred," ever.
• June tells Aunt Lydia that "You know my fucking name." Aunt Lydia is always careful to keep "June" and "Offred" separate: June is an unredeemable fallen woman, but Offred has a chance to be useful. However, when June is holding the gun to Aunt Lydia, she says "Don't do it, June," and that works. 
• When June is attacking Aunt Lydia during the post-capture torture scenes, June ultimately calls her "Lydia." That rattles Aunt Lydia enormously, more than anything else that June has said or done.

Anyone else interested in any of this?

Yes. Names have significance in every human culture. We name nonhuman things and animals that we have affection for/value. In every human culture there are names/titles to distinguish relationships and rank. Taking away the women's names when they become handmaids is the ultimate act of dehumanization. Using someone's given name (compared to title and family name) is an indication of familiarity and equal rank.