Parallels Between The Handmaid’s Tale and Our Society

I finally read The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Growing up, I was always a voracious reader. The Hunger Games was my favorite series. Team Peeta, anyone? So, no wonder the first book I finished within three days of picking it up during my college-years-reading-drought was a dystopian novel with a woman at the center of the story. However, that is not going to be what I compare in this post. Instead, I am going to compare the society in The Handmaid’s Tale to the current society of the United States’ with a variety of different media.

First published in Canada in 1985, and a year later in the United States, Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale while in West Berlin. She was inspired by the odd feeling of being surrounded by a war-torn area. Nevertheless she was worried the world she created would not be believable; therefore, she pulled from history and she pulled from the world. Atwood writes in her Introduction in the 2017 publication, “One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened.” This novel pulls from history, but what I find most interesting is how it mirrors current events.

Serena Joy and Erika Kirk

When Offred, the main character of the novel, meets the Wife of her household, she recognizes her from the past, before the new government took over. She remembers her name as Serena Joy, a religious-political figure who would sing for the Growing Souls Gospel Hour which could be found on the TV when Offred was a kid. Offred describes her on page 16, “…huge blue eyes which she’d turn upwards during hymns. She could smile and cry at the same time, one tear or two sliding gracefully down her cheek, as if on cue…”

One image came to mind when I read that description: Erika Kirk

In this video, Kirk is mourning her husband who had died eleven days prior. Her hair is teased. Her eyes have glittery eyeshadow on them. Her eyeliner and mascara remain unsmudged. Her lips are over-lined to add just a little bit extra to them. She wears a diamond encrusted cross that sits on her chest. She is extravagantly feminine here. She is a woman who has lost her husband, a pain I will not reduce. Yet she made a choice to make him a martyr and to continue his legacy of hate in the name of “traditionalism”.

Another passage I just couldn’t not relate to Kirk: “Her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home. Serena Joy didn’t do this herself, she made speeches instead, but she presented this failure of hers as a sacrifice she was making for the good of all.” 45

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Oh, the hypocrisy.

The Aunts and White Feminism

The Aunts in the novel are the women who train and brainwash the Handmaids. I didn’t properly explain what a Handmaid is, did I? That’s probably important. A Handmaid is a fertile woman brought to high-ranking couples consisting of a Commander and a Wife that are unable to conceive. The Handmaid becomes a vessel for this couple to procreate. She is given no rights, she is merely a body.

Atwood wrote in her 2017 introduction: “Yes, they [women] will gladly take positions of power over other women, even—and, possibly, especially—in systems in which women as a whole have scant power.” This is what she believed in 1984 when she wrote this novel.

Similarly, Mikki Kendall wrote in her 2020 novel Hood Feminism on page 63, “They [white women] sometimes flex what power they do have in ways that are oppressive while they continue to imagine themselves as victims with no power to oppress.”

There is a parallel here. An understanding amongst women that within us we have a hierarchy. That some women will push other women down just to rise the littlest bit in ranking. In The Handmaid’s Tale there was training each Handmaid had to endure. During this time, these women had to Testify which was admitting their sins in front of their cohort and taking blame for them. On one such occasion, when a woman was being blamed for her sexual assault, Offred says on page 73, “For a moment, even though we knew what was being done to her, we despised her.”

Even aware of the brainwashing, the irony, Offred became subject to this power trip.

This happens a lot with white women and women of color. White women do not face the racism along with sexism women of color face, so why worry about intersectional issues? It’s white feminism’s belief that if it doesn’t affect white women, it doesn’t exist. This is where feminism fails to protect ALL women. Most stories about women of color are overshadowed by white women. About 35% of Black women go missing compared to the 14% of white women. Yet, do we see this in the news? No. Racial bias within the media has created a disproportionate amount of coverage with women of color compared to white women. This term is now called “missing white woman syndrome”.

The Aunts remind me of white feminism because they claim to be the protectors of women, but they subject the Handmaids to horror. In many ways, this is what white feminism does to women of color. If white feminists do not use their privilege to uplift voices gone unheard, what else can be swept under the rug?

The Club and “Boys’ Clubs”

To explain this parallel, I’ll have to reveal some major spoilers. #sorrynotsorry. For real though, if you don’t want to be spoiled, feel free to scroll to the end!

Time to get back to business.

In the last third of the novel, Offred is brought to an illegal underground club that is cleverly named “The Club” in an abandoned hotel. She is brought by her Commander, who up until this point has made an effort to secretly have meetings with her in his study at night. Offred, of course, is unable to say no because her life is decided by his word. Throughout the novel, she remains compliant to the whims of the people around her, which brings her to The Club.

She has been brought out for a night on the town. She was made to wear a risque outfit that reveals skin she has been covering up for years now. It goes against everything this new government has taught her to practice. She wears old, bad makeup and has alcohol and cigarettes while in this club. All of which she has not been allowed to do because her body needs to stay healthy to have a baby.

When Offred questions what the purpose of The Club exactly is, the commander responds on page 237, “Nature demands variety, for men.”

Um anyways. I’m already over the word count, so I’m just going to keep on going. The Commander explains this club is only for officers and trade delegations. He explains on page 237, “You can hardly do business without it.” Now this is where it reminds me of a “boys’ club”.

This term is commonly referred to men in the work place excluding women. Using it as a place to advance themselves and keep the same type of people in power. Only 10% of women have leadership roles in corporate America, and women of color are 7.8%. However, women are matching men in the workforce in great quantities. In a very broad sense, the workforce is about 50% men and 50% women. But women still struggle to climb that ladder of leadership, to create a better quality of life for themselves with choice and freedom.

This scene in the novel reminded me of the way misogynistic men often only see the value of a woman in the ways in which she can turn them on. It shows that prostitutes still exist because men cannot live in a world without one that serves their every needs: A Wife for appearances, a Handmaid to continue their lineage, a club to fuck a fantasy of their creation. Everything of this patriarchal world is shaped by and for them. Is this ringing any bells?

Conclusion

There are more parallels, but I fear I’ve rambled enough for now. I guess what I’m meaning to say with this whole post is that if a dystopian novel from the 1980s can mirror our current society, isn’t that scary? This novel, accidentally, proved to me how much more social change we must create in order for equality to exist. We can do it. We made it this far.