The Handmaid's Tale: A Manual For Gender Oppression

As I read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, I frequently found myself shaking my head in disbelief.  One might think that wouldn't be so uncommon in a dystopian fiction, where things are  expected to be so outrageously worse than in the world as we know it, but that wasn't the reason for the head shaking.  The head shaking wasn't because what I was reading was so unbelievable, but because so many of the "ridiculous" ideas in the book could be pulled right out of a history book, or worse, current event news; specifically in Afghanistan. Some of the connections stuck me as so eerily familiar that I started quest of "which came first?" Sadly, it was the book, by a full decade.  If a book is going to mirror abuse and oppression of women, it should at least be in a purely historical context. We've long since outgrown such idiotic ideas about women, right?  Wrong.  The Handmaid's Tale could easily have served as an instruction manual for the Taliban to oppress the women of Afghanistan.

As Offred details all of the ways that she is controlled, the first that truly struck me as familiar was the way she was dressed. "The skirt is ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full.  The white wings too are prescribed issue, they are to keep us from seeing, but also from being seen."  This description, except for the color, describes fairly closely a nun's habit.  In fact, Offred calls her appearance "A Sister, dipped in blood."   But in reading the description, my first thought was the burqa; more specifically the women of Afghanistan who are forced, by the Taliban, to wear a type of burqa called a chadri.  A chadri coveres a women from head to toe, ostensibly for modesty, but the covering goes well beyond the needs of modesty.  The chadri not only covers a woman's body, but her face, including her eyes-with a netting material-which severely limits her vision.  She can neither see or be seen.  Burqas have long been a clothing choice for women of some religions, but the Taliban took that choice from Afghani women and made it a requirement.  Failure to "choose" correctly became punishable by death. The clothing had become a way to identify and control women, just as it had in Gilead.

 As I continued reading, I found more examples of oppression that were closely linked to events in Afghanistan.  Women's movement about the cities was severely limited in both, under the guise of protection: "We turn and walk together...toward the central part of town.  We aren't allowed to go there except in twos.  This is supposed to be for our protection, though the notion is absurd: we are well protected already."  Women in Afghanistan were not allowed to go out unless accompanied by a male relative or risk being beaten by the Taliban.  In the book, Moira summed it up: "They don't want us going anywhere, you can bet on that."

Another similarity between the book and Afghanistan was the immediate restriction of education.  In Afghanistan, women's colleges were closed and women were cut off from paths to education.  In the book, women were not even allowed to read signs. "...when they decided that even the names of shops were too much temptation for us."   Words were contraband because of the power they hold, the power of education.  Offred is thrilled when she finds words hidden in her room, even if she couldn't understand them; "Still, it was a message, and it was in writing, forbidden by that very fact..."

The list could go on comparing the similarities of the oppression of women in Gilead and in Afghanistan, but no matter how many more we find, they all point to a sad truth:  The Handmaid's Tale  was written as dystopian fiction- a made up story intended to show the world the problems it faces and how drastically wrong it could be.  That a full decade after the book was published, a religious regime took over a country (just like the book) and oppressed women to the point that they weren't seen as much more than livestock (just like the book) to further their own agendas (just like the book) is such a sad commentary on the human race and how little we seem to learn.  The Handmaid's Tale could have given the Taliban insights on how to take over a country.  That so many could identify with the rightousness of oppressors speaks volumes about how far we, the human race, still have to go.