>I know that now is probably not the best time to start a thread, but I was
>just wondering... what do you think of The Handmaids Tale, the book
>scared me... worse than Fareignheit 451, but it is an excellent book. In
>the book, womyn are treated very poorly, they have no rights or anything,
>but I would consider it to be "feminist sci-fi". Almost as though
>Margaret Atwood makes her point by saying the opposite...
This is one of my favorite reads - well written, entirely too plausible,
and certainly feminist! I either saw or heard an interview with Margaret
Atwood in which she pointed out that a good deal of her vision of the
future portrayed in this book was actually current reality in some
countries at the time she was writing. I believe she mentioned that in
Rumania at that time, birth control (and abortion, natch) were illegal and
women of childbearing age were required to go for monthly check-ups in
order to monitor pregnencies, and to discourage home abortions. If a woman
was pregnant one month and not the next, she had some serious explaining to
do. They did raise the birth rate, and I think we've all seen the TV
coverage of the results at one time or another. Lots of children in little
cribs, a lot of them with brain damage from lack of intensive attention in
the critical first years of life - not to mention the AIDS babies (resused
needles) and the simple 'failure to thrive' cases, or malnutrition and
physical neglect or abuse.
Ok, that was dealing with a healthy population, and in The Handmaid's Tale
it's apparent that the children would highly valued and certainly not
neglected - though the healthy female children would not exactly be
fufilling their highest personal potential - but the point that women had
been reduced to breeding stock was well made. And how quickly the system
could de-evolve - Offred's daughter would remember little, if anything, of
women's roles in the past, and for her children the transformation would be
complete. Year One.
Scary stuff, indeed.
meg
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