Feb 25 2009
A eureka moment of sorts
Just reading this Barbara Kay column when I realized something: where we (pro-lifers) see life and all the positive things that brings, endless opportunity, hope, freedom to be a woman including absolutely everything that implies… some on the other side see forced reproduction and a government mandated breeding program. Lebensborn with fewer options. That kind of thing.
Just posting that random thought at the end of the day.
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Brigitte worries: My goodness me. How tough it must be for Ms. Atwood now that W. is no longer in the White House!
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Patricia adds: I have always loathed The Handmaid’s Tale. Such a hateful distortion of religion would be the object of a human rights complaint (a successful one) if directed at any group other than Christians. Imagine what the reception would have been had Margaret Atwood told a cautionary dystopic tale of an American Caliphate in which women are enslaved as breeders (and only able to buy their underwear from male salespeople – otherwise known as salesmen, but it is so weird to describe any occupation in gender specific language, I’d almost forgotten such a word existed). Actually, such a scenario is unimaginable, because that would mean Margaret Atwood would be a different person, not the darling of the CBC, the companion of the Order of Canada, our “national treasure”, blah, blah, blah.
No related posts.
Handmaiden’s Tale is an allegory of gay marriage, written before its time. Maybe not Atwood’s intention, but with a writer’s sensibility, she was able to pick it out of the air of the times. The religion resembles that of a secular gay\lesbian activist collective. She simply got the name wrong.
I remember being forced to read that garbage in high school. I also remember (vaguely, we’re talking a long time ago here!) criticizing the hell out of it, much to the shock of my classmates (we had to do presentations, I think I was the only one who criticized it). To my pleasant surprise (I was so nervous about saying a load of “bad things” about the good old curriculum can-con), my teacher talked with me later and said he agreed with me and didn’t like the book much either! Of course, this was a teacher who told us all we had to go to a Grateful Dead show once in our lives (and I did – it was boring, lol). I wish I still had a copy of what I said.