A Handmaid’s Tale: more than just a tale?

Is Margaret Atwood’s Gilead a metaphor for Trump’s America?

After having read Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, a correlation between her presentation of the Handmaids, and the role played by women in society today materialised.  As I explored the idea further, seeking additional parallels, I started to look into the matter of surrogacy. Of course, within Atwood’s Gilead, a distinct patriarchy has stripped women of their rights, leaving them with no choice in carrying another man’s child. As shocking as this idea may seem, it is strikingly prevalent in our reality today. Although comparing surrogacy to the treatment of the Handmaids is extreme, thousands of women worldwide have been, and are being exploited under the protective label of ‘surrogacy’. Ever since the commercial surrogacy industry kicked off in the late 1970s, it has been punctuated with scandals, abuse and exploitation. From the infamous ‘Baby M’ case – in which the mother changed her mind and was forced, in tears, to hand over her baby – to the Japanese billionaire, Mitsutoki Shigeta, who ordered 16 children from various Thai clinics. A total commodification of human life is apparent: allowing people to have their ‘designer babies’ delivered to their doorstep. 

In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, fertile women who are deemed to have ‘sinned’ (for example by having an abortion, committing adultery or being homosexual) are treated as sex slaves, effectively baby incubators, by the ruling class. The mandatory full length red cloaks and white bonnet’s worn by these so-called ‘sinners’, distinctly highlight their sinful nature, stripping any remnant of identity and individuality from them. The strict, uniformed appearance, they are forced to adhere to can be seen as a reflection of  the sexualisation of women and girls (often as a result of implications taken from their appearance) that plagues society even today. A survey conducted for The Independent found 55 per cent of men believed that ‘the more revealing the clothes a woman wears, the more likely it is that she will be harassed or assaulted’. 

There is then, of course, the Alabama Abortion law, also known as the ‘Human Life Protection Act’, passed on May 15th 2019. This set to impose a near-total ban on abortions in the state, starting in November 2019. Though women make up 51% of Alabama’s population, its lawmakers are 85% male: there are only four women in the 35-seat Alabama Senate. As well as angering many, due to what was deemed as the potential endangerment of many women and girls state-wide, the ban also delivered into the political spotlight the recurrence of men making decisions about women’s bodies, bringing the issue, yet again, to the forefront of debate. This male domination, as with many countries, is not exclusive to this instance, having occurred numerous times throughout the country’s history. For example, The United States during the Progressive era (1890 to 1920) was the first country to undertake compulsory sterilisation programs in the name of eugenics. When in discussion about the abortion-ban controversy, I found the undeniable links between the matter and Margaret Atwood’s Gilead not only fascinating, but alarming: were we really continuing to allow men to command women in such a fashion? Many would argue no, citing the decrease in the pay gap, increase in the number of women in professional occupational roles and recent #MeToo movement, as clear evidence of the considerable strides being taken to distance ourselves from any remaining vestiges of the historical patriarchy. It is impossible not to accredit merit to this argument, and yet, the links (if considered tenuous by many), stuck with me, shedding light on how deeply flawed our world can be. 

When speaking at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall on October 28th 2019, Atwood expressed her thoughts whilst writing the novel in 1984. She disclosed that she intended for the book’s message to be ‘let’s not let this happen’, as opposed to the ‘this is going to happen’ that many perceive it to be. She also stated that whilst many consider her ‘strange and twisted’ for displaying the harsh situation occupied by the Handmaids in her novel, she believed she was merely highlighting events that had already occurred somewhere, in someplace: this was not an entirely foreign idea to humankind, perhaps why many find it so barbaric. I suppose it is inherent within human nature to wish to bury the bad, elevating the good into public view and attention, but this isn’t always possible. Margaret Atwood was right; this has happened before. Under Hitler’s Nazi state, the Lebensborn programme saw the birth of over 8,000 children in Germany alone to women impregnated by officers believed to be of the ‘superior Aryan race’. It has happened before. What’s to stop it happening again? Surely it is only through shocking societal expositions, of the nature of ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, that the attention will ever be diverted to the issues that require it most, allowing redirection and change to be made: ideas that are becoming decreasingly synonymous with positive progress in Trump’s America.