The red robes of the Handmaid's Tale have gone global. As women's reproductive rights continue to be rolled back in the US and other parts of the world, comparisons have been made to The Handmaid's Tale, which reimagines America as the post-nuclear hellscape of Gilead. So it's only fitting that the red robes and white winged bonnets of Offred (played by Elisabeth Moss) and her fellow reproductive slaves have become a symbol of power, as women reclaim the costume to campaign for reproductive rights and women's liberty. The protest power of the Handmaid’s robes was first glimpsed when members of NARAL Pro Choice Texas and the Texas Equal Access Fund donned them in the Texas Senate in May 2017 in opposition to restrictive abortion laws in the state.
Handmaids also made the news in Missouri, campaigning against laws preventing uninsured women from seeking reproductive healthcare, and in Florida at Donald Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort, among others. Four countries that mirror the fictional Gilead. It’s easy to see the Republic of Gilead – a society highly segregated according to sex and class, where women’s rights are severely curtailed and same-sex relationships are punishable by death – as a dark fantasy. But Gilead, the autocratic, theocratic dystopia conceived by Margaret Atwood in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale and recently dramatised in an acclaimed television series, has many real-world precursors.
“When it first came out it was viewed as being far-fetched,” Atwood told the Guardian in a 2017 interview. “However, when I wrote it I was making sure I wasn’t putting anything into it that human beings had not already done somewhere at some time.” Despite the progress that has been made in recent years to improve the lives of women around the world, vigilance is still required in the defence of women’s rights. In the United States for example, many states have laws in place restricting access to abortion.
Yemen Yemen is one of the worst places in the world to be a woman. Nigeria. 7 Laws that Should Be In The Handmaid’s Tale | SBS. The Handmaid’s Tale (coming to SBS in July) is the must-see drama of 2017, not just because people have been trying forever to adapt Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel for the screen, but because the dystopian future it suggests has never seemed more terrifyingly possible. The series is set in a world where women are divided into classes: wives, daughters, servants, mistresses… where they’re forced into arranged marriages, housebound, forbidden from reading or studying and regularly raped, turned into literal baby-making factories to keep the species going.
Last week, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed Donald Trump’s new healthcare bill - the American Health Care Act - which reverses many of the basic medical, reproductive and contraceptive rights afforded women under its predecessor, the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). It’s not exactly surprising then that many drew comparisons between America in 2017 and the archaic, misogynist society depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale. BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, 10/11/2010. BBC Radio 4 - Woman's Hour, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Atwood.
Atwood's use of actual historical events » The Handmaid's Tale Study Guide from Crossref-it.info. The real dystopia Although The Handmaid's Tale may be seen as science fiction - or, to use the term which Atwood prefers, speculative fiction - it is clear that she draws on many real historical events to give a strong sense that this dystopian state could become reality: as Atwood herself has said: ‘There's nothing in the book that hasn't already happened.' Many of Atwood's references to such events can be explored in Social / political context > Political satire. In addition, in the Historical Notes section of the novel, Atwood has Professor Pieixoto refer to events ‘in the immediate pre-Gilead period' which readers will recognise as referring specifically to real historical events following the 1970s. One of these real catastrophes is the epidemic - now a pandemic - of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
Nuclear-plant accidents Pieixoto also refers to nuclear-plant accidents. Romanian children Pieixoto mentions the banning of birth control in Romania. Polygamy. The Masterpiece - Van Badham - Weekend Arts - ABC Radio National. Margaret Atwood The New York Times. How Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale resonates in Iran. Sima Sharifi is a Vancouver-based writer. My sister and I lead radically different lives in countries as dissimilar as they get, she in Iran and I in Canada. After almost four decades of physical and emotional separation, a novel renewed our broken sisterly bonds. I came across Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale translated into Persian while doing research for my PhD. Ms. Atwood’s book is a critique of religious-based dictatorship and its lethal effects on women.
Yet, the autocratic Islamist government of Iran endorsed the novel’s translation and publication. Story continues below advertisement I began comparing the English and Persian versions, and noticed language in Persian that overturned Ms. To my pleasant surprise, she said she would love to engage in the project, and had the same question: “I want to know if the story of a famous writer like Atwood’s was altered by the translators to manipulate readers, or if what I read in Persian is accurate.” Culture - Why The Handmaid’s Tale is so relevant today. A white, wide-brimmed bonnet and a red cloak have come to mean one thing: women’s oppression. Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale seared this image into our souls with its depiction of a near-future dystopia in which women are forced into reproductive slavery to bear the children of the elite – and wear this uniform to underline their subservience.
For more than three decades, the image has shown up on the covers of the book around the world, on posters from the 1990 film, in ads for the 2017 TV series, and even on real women at demonstrations for reproductive rights. More like this: - The fiction that changed history - How Harry Potter became a rallying cry - Why tyrants love to write poetry The handmaid we’re presumably seeing in most of these images, though we often don’t know for sure, is Offred, the tale’s narrator. Atwood writes in The Handmaid’s Tale that African-Americans have been resettled to “National Homelands” in the Midwest Puritanism and public policy.