Whiteness in the Handmaid's Tale

I came across a thread on twitter about race in The Handmaid's Tale that is very contrary to how we've talked about the novel in class and how I have thought about it in my recent blog posts. I thought the threat by Mikki Kendall (@Karnythia on Twitter) was something every fan of the novel should think about so I'm going to retype the Tweets below:

"The incredible whiteness of Handmaid's Tale has left me completely underinvested in watching it or rereading it."

"Also if the worst you can imagine is a reality where your children are stolen & you are subjugated...well white feminism lets talk."

"Handmaid's Tale had more of an impact before I knew about reproductive tourism & how transracial adoption can be trafficking in some cases"

"I don't know, the all white dystopia framework bothers me on so many levels."

"It requires me to believe that not only are my people gone, but often that they vanished quietly without any real resistance. As if."

"Like...Black people did not survive slavery, Jim Crow & the War on Drugs to be taken out by a handful of white boys with guns."

"Realistically no community of color in America would go down without a fight & frankly we would band together to win."

"White middle class women might not be ready to knuckle up. But...that means get your weight up. Stop projecting."

"Even the first time I read it I couldn't understand Offred's passiveness. And I was 13. Her logic was very "White girl in horror movie"

""I can't go to my job, access money or vote anymore. I'll just wait here & hope" NOPE. You leave when shit starts going left."

"Also hi, this myth that inner cities are full of cowards that won't fight...beloved that is all these folks do. That's how they survive."

"There's a scene where Offred sees a Black woman in passing & describes her hopeless stare & cheap clothes & well..."

"A community of Black people facing oppression fights back. So do Latinx, Asian & Indigenous communities. And poor white communities"

"That's not projection. That's American history. We know flour can be used to make a bomb for a reason. So the lack of rebels bugs me"

"Realistically the women would be poisoning the men & blowing up their homes long before any new framework could be established."

"You can fight a whole rebellion with household supplies in a pinch....I just got a plot bunny. DAMN IT"

Okay, so those are all her tweets on the subject. I have to confess I hadn't thought about the novel like that all until reading her thoughts, but they make a lot of sense. It does seem somewhat racist and counter-intuitive to me that the majority of black Americans would essentially be forced back into a type of slavery by being Marthas or working in the colonies - realistically those people would never give in that easily. Atwood is not concerned with how her dystopian world impacts people of color, she focuses so wholly on the impact towards white women while largely ignoring the many other stories. Part of this is surely because she wrote the novel in the 1980s, but that doesn't mean she should not be criticized for it.

The Hulu show has clearly tried to make the show more intersectional (not that they would use that word since the show shies away from feminist language) - since in the show Luke and Moira are black as well as other minor characters. However, Rita is still black, which matters too. I still think the world and story Atwood created are important and somewhat feminist, however there is clearly more criticism needed by black feminists and scholars. Any discussion of The Handmaid's Tale as a seminal feminist text ought to include a discussion of how the novel fails people of color, especially women, by failing to tell their stories and underestimating how easily their communities would be destroyed and repressed.

Being Scared of the F-Word

I lied, I'm not done talking about Handmaid's Tale thinkpieces yet. Perhaps the most important one written since the show came out is from MTV News' Rachel Handler called "On the Handmaid' Tale, Bernie Sanders, and Feminism." Handler was prompted to write the piece after watching the cast and creators of the Hulu show at the Tribeca Film Festival go out of their way to avoid calling the show a feminist project. 


Handler was disturbed and disappointed by this, especially considering Margaret Atwood herself has shied away from calling her story feminist in numerous interviews. Handler wrote: "What struck me instead was the haunting notion that we've reached a point in history where an explicitly political, feminist work of art must be depoliticized and downplayed for fear of alienating the men who might feel excluded by it."

Many writers and commentators are forgiving the cast, creators, and Atwood for their refusal to discuss the OBVIOUS feminist and political themes of the story, but Handler's refusal to allow this dilution of the meaning is important. Hollywood has a long, established habit of this type of practice since drawing large audiences for projects is more important than appearing feminist or diverse. On this, Handler points out that "stories about men have always been viewed as status quo "human stories," while stories about women, or people of color, or queer people have always been viewed as "stories about women, or people of color, or queer people," forcing their casts to go on the defensive."

Here, it's hard to blame the cast since they want the project to be successful and therefore don't want to 'alienate' potential fans who would shy away if the project was marketed as FEMINIST. But at the same time we have to hold them accountable since the show is absolutely feminist judging from its themes and message. Another quote from the Handler piece I this that I really thought was important was: "Words matter, whether you're living in a dystopia or your basic plutocracy, and in Gilead, language has been bent into both a weapon and an unsolicited shield. The Republic subjects its people to unspeakable horrors by coating them in euphemism, in inaccurate language that obscures the true nature of what's being done to them. Terrified silence and linguistic obfuscation are the twin pillars that bolster the patriarchal dystopia." I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. 

Another Margaret Atwood Link....

I'll start writing about other topics again, but first one more Atwood link! She did an interview with the New Yorker Radio Hour, I believe it was last week. I haven't gotten a chance to listen to the Podcast episode yet but I heard it was really good. She talks about how realistic The Handmaid's Tale is.

Also, I got Hulu just to do the free trial and watch the show. I've seen the first two episodes already (SPOILERS) and it's fantastic so far! There are small changes to the book's plot that I've noticed, but nothing that seems out of character or like it doesn't fit with the world Atwood created. The real triumph of the show is how effectively it conveys the mood and themes of the story. The cinematography, lighting, set and all the smallest details are eerily perfect. My favorite thing about how they've paced the show so far is how there are periods of an episode that are *almost* boring where we get to know Offred's world, but nothing much is really happening, leaving you anxious until the next horrifying thing happens. That feeling of slight boredom, with an underlying dread would be exactly what the handmaids must feel, so the fact that the show conveys the same feeling is really cool.

Margaret Atwood Poem

This isn't as related to feminism/the class as what I usually post, but I wanted to share it anyways. I came across this Margaret Atwood poem online the other day and it's really beautiful (copied from www.poets.org)

Variation on the Word Sleep
Margaret Atwood, 1939

 I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head

and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear

I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in

I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.


From Selected Poems II: 1976-1986 by Margaret Atwood. Copyright © 1987 by Margaret Atwood. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.

"There's a Special Place in Hell..."

DONT READ THIS POST UNTIL YOU'VE FINISHED THE HANDMAID'S TALE - SPOILERS!

I've been reading the many fascinating new thinkpieces and show reviews about The Handmaid's Tale as it's about to come out on Hulu, and two worth mentioning were in the New Republic and The Atlantic. Both the New Republic thinkpiece and the Atlantic review of the Hulu show made me think of that famous, often criticized Madeleine Albright quote "there's a special place in hell for women who don't help other women."

I thought of that quote because the authors of both articles play with the idea that the most vicious villains in The Handmaid's Tale are the women, not the men, referring to Serena Joy and the Aunts. The Atlantic piece states: The complicity of many wealthy women in the tyranny of Gilead is another aspect of the show that sharpens its topical relevance, particularly after an election in which a majority of white women voted against a female president. But casting women as co-oppressors in the novel, Atwood told me, was merely another way of remixing history. “They’re the roles that women have always played,” she said. If someone were creating Gilead from scratch, she said, the most intuitive thing to do would be to enlist women in the policing of it, offering them limited power over other women. “There are always takers for that.”

Sarah Jones, a former devout Christian who left the church partly because she read Atwood's book, in the brilliant New Republic essay writes: Serena Joy chose her life. Lydia is empowered to attack other women with a cattle prod. Both are proof that women are represented in Gilead’s power structure. If feminism is only about representation, choice, or some vaguely sketched notion of empowerment, it is difficult to say our Serena Joys and our Aunt Lydias are not feminists.

However, a few lines later Jones expands on this idea: A form of feminism that celebrates power for power’s sake, instead of interrogating how it is concentrated and distributed, will usher us into fascism. Feminism means something. Some choices oppress the women who make them, and some beliefs, if enforced, would oppress everyone else, too. Allow an antichoice woman to call herself a feminist, and you have ceded political territory that you cannot afford to lose. Stripped of political meaning, “feminist” becomes an entirely subjective term that anyone with any agenda can use.

In other words, individual women who have social power, agency, and decision-making abilities are not necessarily 'feminist'. The definition ought to be more complex and inclusive than that, or there's no point. (This connects to our class discussion a while ago about consumerist feminism and the rise of a culture focusing on the individual over social structures as damaging to feminism). The more we broaden the definition, the less it means, the less powerful it is, and the more repression we allow to creep into the so-called idea of feminism.

As much as I agree with both essays, (and with the sentiment behind Albright's quote, for the most part), something has been nagging at me about their argument that the female oppressors in Atwood's story are the worst. It seems almost un-feminist to engage in this classic act of blaming the females and holding them once again to a higher moral standard than the male oppressors. Of course Aunt Lydia and Serena Joy are despicable for their compliance and participation in this system and its creation, but they are trying to survive in a world with no options.

One of the most fascinating parts of the book to me is the historical note at the end where we receive some background on the creation of Gilead. Specifically on page 306, Atwood refers to the "top-secret Sons of Jacob Think Tanks, at which the philosophy and social structure of Gilead were hammered out." This really struck me the first time I read the book, since as a student of political science I couldn't stop thinking, 'holy sh*t, if a bunch of male religious leaders, academics, and politicians wanted to violently overthrow the US government and turn this into a authoritarian theocracy, it would totally start with a freaking think tank.' Seriously.

And I'm sure those Sons of Jacob meetings where the structure was decided would not have included any women. The Aunts and other women allowed to have some power were let in later in the process, most likely, and fooled into thinking they were part of the elite. To a point they were, but Serena Joy and the Aunts by virtue of their gender were never really trusted. That was the whole point after all.

There are a lot of complex ideas in the book and in Jones' essay and I'm still thinking them all through and making connections. The world of The Handmaid's Tale is complicated and filled with moral gray area, and so is feminism itself. Perhaps that's why the sentiment 'there's a special place in hell for women that don't help other women' rings true at first but also makes me a bit uncomfortable with its simplicity and implied moral absolutism.

Is there really no place in feminism or women's activism for pro-life women? What about women who wrote in Bernie Sanders in the general election because they genuinely believe Hillary Clinton was more dangerous than Trump? How comfortable should liberal feminists be in attacking and tearing down conservative women and how productive is that anyway? I don't know any of those answers, but I won't stop thinking about the questions.

Objectivity in Science and the Liberal Arts Core

When I saw this tweet, I thought it was really important and something worth putting on the blog. It reminded me of the chapter we read on the history of women's bodies. People assume that medicine and science are logical, unbiased disciplines, but in reality doctors and scientists are subject to the same societal structures and systems of oppression as everyone else. Doctors and scientists are products of a world that has systemically promoted sexist and racist ideas and practices, and pretending otherwise is extremely dangerous. It's important not to let these parts of our society off the hook. Unfortunately, when people in the humanities or social sciences make this critique of science or medicine, the critique is often ignored despite its validity.

The women's bodies chapter as well as Pushed relate this idea to medical practices, both historically and contemporarily, in interesting ways. For instance, the gendered aspects of maternity care as outlined in Pushed were not accidental. As technology progressed and the medical field became more established and powerful (and it was always male controlled since men had the access to education and research) - it pushed its way into childbirth. Midwives lost their influence to doctors because most people did not question medicine. The word of doctors and scientists is seen as unbiased fact by many people and this should definitely be questioned more.

Many students complain about Manhattan College's extensive liberal arts core and the fact that even business/engineering students have to take multiple liberal arts classes. I'd argue that more schools should have similar requirements, so that these students have historical context for what they are taught about science/economics/etc. In fact, I believe it would be helpful if the requirements went beyond just the general 150 classes, since those survey courses aren't taken seriously by many students. The classes that truly changed my perspective and taught me entirely new things were the Sociology/Psychology/History/Religion classes that I took either for Women and Gender Studies or for Global/Non-Western credit. "Niche" classes like my Catholic labor studies course, Race and Resistance, Genocide and Racism, and Psych of Women were the most important, yet those are only taken by the liberal arts students who seek them out. That should change, so that students who major in biology, pre-med, finance, and so on have an understanding of the complicated and often hidden histories behind their fields that they might otherwise never be exposed to.

Netflix's new Show 'Dear White People'

I want to share a trailer for a new Netflix original show that looks awesome and relates to the themes of the class. The first 10 episodes come out on April 28 and the Hollywood Reporter describes it as, "Lionsgate's Dear White People follows a group of Winchester University students of color as they navigate a diverse landscape of social injustice, cultural bias, political correctness (or lack thereof) and sometimes misguided activism in the millennial age. Set against the backdrop of a predominantly white Ivy League university, where racial tensions bubble just below the surface, Dear White People is described as being a hilarious send-up of "post-racial" America that weaves together the universal story of finding one's own identity and forging a wholly unique path."

The main character is a woman of color and the show definitely deals with issues related to feminism, racism, and the political tensions present on even the most liberal college campuses today. I can't wait to watch! Link to the trailer. The show has already received tons of backlash even though it hasn't come out yet, and the trailer on Youtube elicited a lot of negative reactions with people furious over the "politically correct" themes.