The Handmaid's Tale

[Austin]

I'm a lot older than you - which may account for my opinion. However I have seen an escalation in the erosion of many of the fundamental rights that generations prior to us have fought so hard for. This is particularly true for women. One need only look at Iran over the course of that last few decades. One day women could go to school/work/have choice and in the a very short period they were covered up and shut up. Things went very quickly from not that bad to horrible (and truly dystopian) for women. Fundamentalism seems ever so benign when woman bloggers talk about how much they love being at home with their dear children and submitting to wise and kind husbands but behind that pleasant facade is a cold hard truth: it is the way of the fundamentalists or no way. I fear the problem of eroding rights/choices is going to get much worse in the future because so many people seem apathetic - "I don't see a problem", "it doesn't affect me" "the problem is too big" "the system will just correct itself" are common excuses I have heard. I fear that we could well be heading into a future where more and more of our choices are taken away and in my own life I try and volunteer/donate to causes that I hope will help stem this tide. I have no advice for you on what to do except a quote from Mother Teresa who said "“We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.â€

[shesinsane]

One thing for plausibility (because I think Handmaid's Tale is the one sf-themed book she's done where she actually thought about mechanics instead of just jumping right in to the vision) is that even though the society Offred is living in considers itself "The United States" it may actually not be very big - there are throwaway mentions of rebel areas unconquered still, and "the war" is not going well for the government her Commander is in.

I agree, I always imagined New England and maybe a few surrounding states in the Christian dictatorship, other parts of the country formed their own governements.

There is a movie version of the book, it's pretty good in terms of sticking to the story. A great way to learn about the "utopia" without reading about it.

For those who believe it's too outlandish, consider that in the 70s/early 80s, a woman could walk down the streets of Kabul in a mini skirt and no one cared. I doubt you could have convinced any of the locals that in 20 years a woman walking down that same street without a full length burka could/would be beaten (maybe to the point of death), with government approval. You probably wouldn't even be able to convince them that girls would be banned from attending school, but that's what happened when the Taliban took over.

[emmiedahl]

If I recall AHT correctly, vast areas of the USA were contaminated by radiation from nukes during the war. Also, radiation poisoning is why so many women were infertile and/or having deformed babies.

Women who could not be handmaids due to fertility/rad exposure problems were sent to clean up the contaminated parts of the country and died soon thereafter.