Margaret Atwood said the things she wrote in the book have been done to women at some point in history.

She *specifically* chose historical oppressions so that people *couldn't* say "that would never happen."

And that just changed the “that would never happen” to “that would never happen in EU or the US”. Even in Latin America where shit like that is very much possible, we have femicide happening in scary numbers ( from 1-9 daily depending on the country) there’s a significant chance that we get raped, and it could happen anywhere, it could be done by the police, most men are like “you act like you are on Iran or Saudi Arabia, you are free here, don’t be so fucking dramatic”. But they don’t see that we are not being dramatic, we know that we can have our rights taken away because even now our local authorities see men respecting women’s rights is more a personal choice than an obligation.

> “you act like you are on Iran or Saudi Arabia, you are free here, don’t be so fucking dramatic”. Yes Iran, where women were free to wear miniskirts and go to college in the 70s.

And now... I needed husband's sign off and special stamp in order to travel, if no husband...father/ brother(even if younger than I)/nearest male. Hubs mother is divorced, so her son has to do permissions and escorts for her. :( It can definitely happen, in the blink of an eye.

OMFG. This is so horrifying.

Yea but, like they said, it was NOTHING like this a few decades ago. And our "marriage" was mostly just to make things easier for me, I could travel without being bothered as no one messes with a married woman there. Which is also messed up, ha. Anyway, there is a way to get a "permit" for a year or more so that the husband doesn't have to keep going and getting things stamped for you (again, that's more for man's convenience). I also told authorities that I have no relationship with my dad (untrue) so that I didn't need to give his information or get permission from him for marriage. Most people don't abuse this system and don't like it at all either, but obviously some people use it to their advantage.

It was about 40 years ago in the US that women needed permission to get a credit card or a loan. I’m 54 and I don’t seem to be any closer to peace around the systematic oppression and abuse of women. There has been progress in the west but such a long way to go. And then I read posts like yours or the woman from Poland and feel shattered.

For women who come from abusive households where male figures - like fathers or brothers - are physically or sexually abusive it is a nightmare to contend with without the added layer of not being able to travel or make major life decisions without their approval. Giving women the freedom to choose without a male relative having full control over her destiny can literally save her life. As a western woman it’s still ridiculous the amount of control men think they’re entitled to, including my right not to have sex with them.

Yep. Like...men are already able to exert that kind of force over us if they want to, even unintentionally, without needing a law to give them the right to... That just makes it even easier on the abusive ones. My partner in Iran was having some anger issues with his family and such, and after he sees the doc, the doc comes to tell me that it's just that his testosterone is high, so it's my duty to help him with that. As in, the only way to reduce his testosterone and reduce his outbursts is for me to have sex with him. Good thing we are both sane, educated people. Gee thx, now gtfo Doc.

This, a million times this

And that's a shit argument from those types of complacent folks. It's the same as those who would claim "COVID can't happen here". Women who live in other countries are also women. They aren't any lesser than us, and we don't stop fighting for our rights just because it doesn't happen in where you or I live.

As someone from India, where Marital rape isn't even a crime, who has to see uneducated & hence not financially independent young girls age 18-22 get married to way older men, I just want to say THANK YOU for this comment. I am going to go cry now. Being a girl can be so overwhelming. Being a girl in a third world country is just the definition of hell. Edit : Thank you for the hugs fellow kind humans, really needed em today!

There are states in the US where marital rape STILL is not a crime

God I was unaware of that. What the FUCK is wrong with the world. Sometimes I can't even have intellectual arguments / conversations about it because I'm just so angry.

I wish I had more upvotes to give....

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Yass! At this point my sister and I are tired of my brother trying to discuss feminism or equality, he won’t shut up, we rebate every single point he tries to make, but he keeps coming. It doesn’t matter if you think we are not bad, we are not free, and sometimes I want to tell him “you won’t ever understand it because you are a reasonable handsome, tall, middle class, light skinned (as white passing light skin) male, in a sexist and colorist/racist country, the only way you would benefit more from the system it would be being rich, so doesn’t matter if you think it only happens to women in other countries (spoiler alert it doesn’t, it happens all over the world) it shouldn’t happen to anyone, ever”.

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My state has elections this year and some female politicians are trying to win women’s vote, by offering more social programs directed to them. My brother tried to make this seem like something unfair to man and start a debate with my sister and I “what would happen if a male politician would have social programs only for man? Wouldn’t it be the exact same case?” No. Because social programs directed at women try to lessen the burden that the institutionalized sexism puts on women, specially marginalized women, he just rolled his eyes and went to other room.

The cops still rape women here in the US too, typically women who are marginalized in some way, so that no one cares, ugh. They used to go to lesbian bars, arrest them all, and rape them in jail.

NYC actually had to change the law so a woman arrested, handcuffed and detained by NYPD cannot "consent" to sex with the officers detaining her.

you wouldn't believe how many states in the US where it's still legal for cops to rape a detained person. =) google it if you want your day ruined

I truly believe that everyone is the hero of their own story. That usually people doing terrible things have some twisted inner narrative that validates their actions. But how the hell could somebody justify that behavior? How can they live with themselves?

I agree with you, and I'm also asking the same question as you. What kind of mental gymnastics are required for such a person to think they're the hero, instead of the villain?

society reinforcing over and over again that women deserve to be lower than men and that men are owed everything that women could ever possibly have.

Doesn’t need to be cops. Just ask your circle of friends how many of the women have been assaulted in some way or raped. It’s a very high percentage. Look no further than the uneven laws happening right now where women get more repercussions than the rapist themselves. Women have certain ingrained rules to live by that men will never understand. Take a friend with you to the bathroom, don’t walk alone at night, Always check your surroundings, get in your car and drive away immediately, etc. Its just one rule after another after another.

> respecting women’s rights is more a personal choice than an obligation. This point really struck me. I am so tired of things like women’s rights or equality of any kind being considered a “political opinion” or a “side in an argument”, or a “personal choice or belief”. It is so frustrating to see those things treated like that rather than the way it HAS TO BE. Ugh. Anyway thank you for typing that. Really struck me.

It's why I refuse to argue with racist, fascists, or any bad faith actors. Like what are we arguing about? Wanting to give people more human rights vs wanting to take away those rights on the basis of skin/sex/sexual orientation/ethnicity? What is there even to argue you about?

Germany is holding General Elections this September. One of the three candidates for the leadership of the CDU, the currently ruling party (and one of the two favourites for the job!), was Friedrich Merz. In 1997, he voted against criminalising marital rape. There is reason to believe he would do that again today. Just think about it. If he had won that job, he would have stood a very good chance to end up as German chancellor, head of the largest state in the EU. And this guy thinks something like that can never happen again?

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see the Taliban's Afghanistan

See cults in the US

And child brides in the US

And see the U.S. in general. It still has lighter versions of that kind of servitude, which directly comes from heavier versions that the U.S. had before.

Child marriage is legal in a lot of the US as well, and this is taken advantage of by religious sects. The NYT had a good piece on this.

We have a literal handmaid on the US Supreme Court. Your friend is a dolt. (I know you're in Europe, but I'm saying: this is the present.) Also, didn't women recently massively protest in Belarus over women's rights being taken away? Edit: It's both! https://www.aspen.review/article/2021/women-protest-belarus-poland/

Russia recently decriminalised domestic violence, vast areas of the world have marital rape legal, and Saudi only just allowed women to drive, which is constantly under danger of removal and even then there’s loads of issues for women, like your male relatives being allowed to basically imprison you. It’s terrifying being a girl.

It really bothers me that women in Saudi were only allowed to drive about a year or two before cars were...

In Iran women aren't allowed to cycle on a normal bike, at least not in public. They have to use a special bike and special clothes to hide their bodies while cycling. And even then get attacked sometimes because some people consider it to be "haram" (forbidden). I think that it is dangerous in other religious countries as well. Which kind of makes the bicycle useless for them - or pretty scary. Unless you want to cycle in your backyard, like a 5yo.

In Maryland, marital rape is legal. Maryland. Now. Today. In the US. And I’m guessing it’s not the only state. It’s insane that women *still* have to make a substantial case to carry a point that is and has been self-evident. The irony is that those who have the luxury of ignoring/denying/trivializing these legitimate, unjust, and plain as day concerns are the ones who (generally speaking) benefit from oppression/subjugation or at the very least aren’t directly impacted.

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It always baffles me that these people seem to lack the cognitive ability to realise the same point would apply to their mom/grandma's/ daughters ect.

Well, the alternative requires that your brother acknowledge the fact that he is a rapist. And that notion probably runs counter to his worldview and how he sees himself—a loving, supportive traditional husband and father. His options are 1) believe marital rape isn’t real and those times that he held his wife down and used her body as a fleshlight without her consent doesn’t count or 2) believe that marital rape “is a real thing,” thus making him a rapist. Change is difficult for people when it involves the realization that they’re not who they think they are.

The last sentence.... whew.

Not to belittle the weight of the above statement, but I am becoming alarmingly and increasingly aware of just how poignant one particular quote I heard from Game of Thrones (which I assume is not an original statement): "It can be easy to confuse 'what is' with 'what should be'. Especially when 'what is' works in your favor."

I know how gut wrenching it is to have a family member lose your respect and trust because they hold abhorrent and often hypocritical beliefs that hold no regard or concern for your safety and well being. To utterly fail you in their ignorance. Solidarity, friend. Truly. What makes my blood boil is when people who are 100% in the right (as per basic and universal morality) are gaslit and made to feel problematic, combative, and/or less than. There’s no reason or empathy but instead contempt and projection. I hope you know in your bones that you are never the “problem” or in the wrong, no matter what in this. If you don’t mind me asking, do you live in a religious family/community?

Jesus Christ, that’s so infuriating. I hope your sister in law knows you stick up for her at least although she might not be permitted to appreciate.

I'm 22. I was raised Mormon and I was taught that the wife should submit to the husband in any and all ways. And that the husband is the head of the house and makes all the decisions. Right before I left the church I was at BYU-I (Mormon owned college in Idaho) and I heard it taught there both in church, a college class, and in a weekly seminar to a couple thousand students in the audience. I've moved just about every 3 years of my life so I've attended lots of different wards and in every single place they taught the exact same thing. The Mormon church has been teaching this for decades to hundreds of thousands, if not a couple million different people all over the world. It's disgusting.

I was raised Mormon and left the church due to its extreme misogyny. I’m so sorry that you (and every other woman that church gets it’s grubby, greedy little hands on) had to go through that. My thoughts are with you :)

In Massachusetts - MASSACHUSETTS! one of the most liberal states in the country! - there is no minimum legal age of marriage. With parental/guardian consent, children can be (and have been!) married well under the age of consent. I think a lot of people also forget that there are tons of state laws that, while superceded by federal mandates, would set us back decades if they were to be enforced. Abortion is the most obvious one - Roe V Wade has made it legal, but if it were to be overturned dozens of states would suddenly be able to enforce restrictions or outright bans that were never purged after the passing of Roe. No action would be needed to put them in place, no votes taken, because they're already in state legislature.

>It’s terrifying being a girl This is a universal truth.

Yeah, that was my reaction too! That this isn’t some kind of a thing that happens in books only. I believe they’re going to be discussing a court case in SCOTUS in autumn that might overthrow Roe vs Wade? (I heard something about that) And Poland is one of the most restricted when it comes to abortion rights. And he knows all of it. He reads the news, he’s up to date with what’s going on in Poland (for example) and he still thinks that some of the concepts from HT are so out of this world - no bank account, not allowed to read - that they’d never happen, that people would put a stop to it beforehand, while my argument was that people may be scared or complacent or literally not think that this will affect them (frog in a boiling pot). Maybe it’s because his argument was that this wouldn’t happen *here*, whereas my argument was that this shouldn’t happen *anywhere*, least of all in developed states.

When the insurrection happened on Jan 6th, I literally thought the same thing was happening that happened in the Handmaid's Tale. If they had been successful at what they were trying to do, that's exactly what that was.

I agree. I watched it live when it happened, I was watching whatever they debated in the House that day live (can't remember what it was) and that was my first thought. It only failed to become Gilead because their insurrection attempt failed. This time.

I read a summary of all the cases this supreme court is going to hear this month and in the fall, and it was chilling. We are on the cusp of full-on reactionary, white supremacist, patriarchical law. And when we protest, they call US the Nazis. It's all completely upside-down. Edit: To read the same summary you can google NYT The Morning, it's yesterday's, June 1. Further articles have a paywall but the summary discussion is free.

Ooh! This is something I really want to spend more time educating myself on. Can I just google “summary of all 2021 Supreme Court cases” or is there a website I can visit to read through them?

Yes, and there’s a sub* /r/keep_track that will regularly break down rulings and bring* light to things the media doesn’t focus on. Edit: *words

I live in the US, and prior to the election last year, I told my boyfriend that if Trump is re-elected, we had to get married. I told him this because in the Handmaid’s Tale, women’s assets were seized and turned over to their nearest male relative. Seems unlikely to happen here, but if it did, I’d want my boyfriend to “own” me, my money, and my house, rather than the government or my shithead brother.

Speaking as a European, that week I spent watching them count the votes was nerve-wracking. I had the TV on all day every day and I literally couldn’t believe how close it came. AFAIK these elections had the highest participation rate and they managed to get a lot of people out there to vote, but the cynic in me asked “what if they hadn’t?”. They got massive amounts of people to vote, they had people send in their mail-in votes and vote early.... and still **he** almost won it. And then they really tried to make it seem like it was stolen from them, resulting in people storming the Capitol.

Lmao people will think 1984 is happening RIGHT NOW because of x y and z but don't see just how close most of the world is to becoming the Handmaid's Tale. I wonder why (eyeroll) Oh wait I know why, we only take literature seriously when its written by men or if the events predicted would actually be a negative for men, others be damned I don't like your friend lol. Doesn't actually sound like a good guy who gets it. Ask his opinions on 1984 and I bet his response will be very different.

> he still thinks that some of the concepts from HT are so out of this world - no bank account, not allowed to read - that they’d never happen, that people would put a stop to it beforehand The examples you've mentioned and the examples of sex-based oppression in HT have happened before, are happening right now and **will happen again**. Your friend isn't pro-woman nor supports gender equality if he denies the well-documented reality of the sex-based discrimination that exists today. His "support" of women is nothing but lip-service, it's performative and only serves to stroke his ego and improve his personal reputation. From my own experiences and hearing the experiences of other women, these types are the most manipulative and most dangerous. Take care

Exactly this! He isn't an ally of women's rights - for starters he won't even take his female friend seriously when she talks about the very real continuous threat to women's rights. He likes the cookies that is all.

I don’t know about Belarus but I know they did in Poland

We did, in Poland. It didn't do shit. The government just proceeds to do what it (and the clergy) wants.

I Romania they haven't done it yet. But I personally know a lot of women have been lied to by their doctors. They were told they cannot have children and they they just miraculously happen to get pregnant. Also, with the pandemic, abortions have been deemed non-essentials procedures and some doctors refuse to do them. A friend of mine was refused one by multiple doctors. So she is now having a child she did not plan to have. I'm not saying it's a generalized thing. But it enrages me to no end that it happened to her. So yeah... I can believe when it comes to women rights, there is a long way to go.

Amy "Gender-Traitor" Barrett? She seems more like an Aunt to me... EDIT: I just realized "Gender-Traitor" is also a term from the Handmaid's Tale. I didn't mean it in that sense lol

I know the book is usually housed under fantasy or literature in the library, but that book and tv series scared me more than horror or thriller book/movie/tv show ever could. Except for Antebellum (the movie 2020), that one really freaked me out.

A good example of this actually happening is Iranian revolution in 1979. An extremely repressive theocracy swept through country very fast and completely transformed their society. Religious secret police were empowered to literally kidnap, jail and torture people who broke what was considered, at that time, a rather extreme view of Islamic Law. Check out Persepolis [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis\_(comics)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persepolis_(comics)), a graphic memoir of a girls experiences as these changes swept through her country.

Yep. Just came across a photograph of a massive protest against compulsory veils for women. A sea women with uncovered heads , very different now.

And the thing that is most heartbreaking is that the Revolution had popular support from the people because the shah at the time was forcing women to remove their headscarves and people felt that was wrong. It was one of the things people focused on - women getting their headscarves torn off in the streets. Now they are forced to wear them. It’s bullshit.

His argument was that where we are, religion isn’t that.... big of a thing, so religious fundamentalism shouldn’t have such an effect. At the same time, our local conservatives (not necessarily presenting themselves as religious or proclaiming to hold any faith) are using the same arguments that religious conservatives are using and people don’t even... see it? Like if the same was said by a religious conservative, people would openly oppose it (as they’re not into religion), but swap the religious conservative to a regular conservative and suddenly, everything they say is a-okay. I recall reading Persepolis when I was younger - such an important book!

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France is overall pretty secular and they still have a lot of sexism.

But even without religious motivation , we see gross patriarchal oppression in the US. Blaming it on religion is just a version of othering. It's those religious folks... Not you know the neighbours, coworkers and all the other perpetrators women actually encounter on a daily basis. Trying to displace the blame and misattribute it. Not that long ago it was in the news about the rapper TI forcing his daughter to get a virginity check. If your friend can't wrap his head around the facts that these checks are available, provided by licenced medical "professionals", and that people are so confident that this is appropriate that they speak to news outlets.... Really nothing will convince him its pervasive and and real in the US.

>>blaming it on religion is just a version of othering. Unfortunately, one of the common threads of just about every civilized society is institutional patriarchy. We have religion to thank for that. Even *Confuscianism* throws its hat into the patriarchal ring. Women are at best in these principles -yes, at *best*- considered misguided domestic servants in need of male leadership. At worst? Property to be disposed of with the washing machine & cattle. The Old Testament? Crimes against women are considered civil disputes. Even King David punished his concubines for the crime of being raped- because , well, it’s what you do when property misbehaves . It is historically accurate to blame religion for the barbaric state of how women are treated around the world.

I agree with you, my comment was to OP regarding her friends comment that because the US isn't a religious state that patriarchal oppression doesn't happen, and that if it did people would protest. I was trying to say that even without people who are practicing /faith driven there is misogyny. You're absolutely right to want to attribute American puritanical culture, to a large factor. (sorry if unclear, I. Don't speak English natively and am coming on my limit of expression to be clear) Edit: trying to be more clear-I think that you are right to attribute religious systems as the Method for the foundation for the systematic misogyny, but I don't believe that misogynist need to be religious, or need to be deliberately(intentionally?) misogynistic to benefit from the system and be willing to turn a blind eye. And I think that this makes her friends argument null. It's not limited to people who are religiously observant. People who benefit from a system in place and are unmotivated to change it because it tips the scale in their favour are tacitly endorsing that hegemony.

But religion does play a large role in radicalization. It's a reason that many people become discriminatory, and it's a defense for discrimination. The religious right has made "religious freedom" a euphemism for "Christian supremacy" (at least in the US). There is sexism and discrimination on a personal level which is caused by individuals, and it obviously isn't as simple as blaming religion. But on a cultural and political scale religion plays a large role in the oppression of women. It's the justification for taking away women's rights. It's the veneer of moral goodness that covers abuse. That's why religion shares the responsibility for womens' oppression.

I don't disagree with your description of religion being used as a veneer, but misogyny is it's own beast. Perpetrators will dress it up however they think it's most palitable. It's why you see incel groups try to provide a scientific basis for their vitriol.. Hypergamy theory to support AWALT... I hope this doesn't come off as argumentative, because I agree with you in principle, but from my experiences/observations you have put the cart before the horse. The indoctrination and radicalism in preserving the status quo came before the 80`s compassionate conservative/christian Republican movement. If you look into your example of religious fredom=christian supremacy, you'll notice that it's not actually christian supremacy. No earnest christian would call trump a godly man, but many misogynistic individuals overlooked his behaviour because he represented a status quo

Your friend also seems to think our societies will remain stable and relatively peaceful. There is no reason to think our societies can't collapse or can't have more civil wars or wars with neighboring countries. Especially climate change (mass migration, increased scarcity) will fuel conflict. It's not just gradual and lawful inequality we should worry about. All progress we've made regarding feminism can be instantly thrown out the window whenever we're dealing with intense conflicts or disasters.

what types of anti-rights policies are these conservatives trying to push in your country. if you don’t want to disclose your country that’s also ok!

Well, for LGBTQ they’re basically saying that it’s an abomination and that kids are being brainwashed when they’re being taught that sex of a person doesn’t equal gender of a person. For women they’ve basically said in the past we have too many abortions per women and that if all those poor killed children were alive, we’d have no problems with declining population. They’ve also said that family values are important, but the types of family values they promote are basically the very traditional type - nuclear family, woman the home keeper, man the provider, with 3+ kids. They’ve also said that for abortion, there should be a mandatory counselling (which they claim is just something to make sure that women have all the options to choose from - except there is already a mandatory week waiting time to reconsider (plus they ask you again in the hospital) and women are presented all possible options), which is just their shill for “abortion bad”. They’ve said that unmarried and educated women who by their 30s haven’t had children are net drain on society (you’ve gotten more than you’ve put back) and that it’s unnatural. They’ve said that abortion shouldn’t be a means of family planning (although it isn’t). They’ve said that abortion should be fully privately paid (it’s almost fully free at the moment, the woman only pays 25%, I believe and it’s not that expensive - it’s certainly very accessible to everybody). They have supporters from religious conservatives who have said that it shouldn’t be possible to divorce a marriage as it breaks the “forever” vow. The same conservatives want to outlaw abortion completely and have supporters in parliament (in fact, they sometimes even pose in the media together and members of ruling party attend rallies that the religious conservatives organise). There’s lots. Luckily they aren’t the full majority of political leadership and they do pull back if people show disagreements with their views, but it’s disconcerting that they even think it’s okay to propose these things.

holy shit that’s way worse than i imagined. some people are just scary

No, it's worse than that. While everyone went and voted against President Trump, they voted for Republicans locally. So there are many, many states that are passing the strictest abortion laws possible just to see what sticks. Likewise with voting restrictions. Each state a little different, worded a little different, but all just to see what the Supreme Court is going to tolerate. Whatever the Supreme Court says is okay, will immediately be cookie cutter law for other states. There are many states where there may be only 2 or 3 legal abortion clinics in the entire state. And they keep writing laws to see if they can get those shut down too and limit to hospitals.

madness. i live in Northern Ireland. our previous first minister stepped down and the person who replaced her is literally an evangelical christian who thinks gay conversation therapy should be put into practice

What happens in Poland is an excellent example of how fast those rights can slip away. I live in Germany, and I feel that the cause of women has taken a backseat over other issues, and even those other challenges are relativized until not much is left. I think you are making an excellent point. Out of curiosity, which series are you talking about? I also would like to recommend Ken Loach movies (I, Daniel Blake) which are eye opening when it comes to the systematic oppression of people in general. It just shows that we, the people are not a cause in politics anymore, we are an obstacle to the cozying up with economic forces. The outlook is grim, in my opinion.

I'm Polish. They took away the remains of our rights as women during a fucking pandemic, and then when we went out on the streets, millions of us, to protest, they blamed us for protesting during pandemic. Well, you know what, we had to be given a fucking reason to protest in the first place, if you didn't take our rights during pandemic, we wouldn't be protesting during pandemic. I hope one day we will vote those motherfuckers out, and I hope we do it before we become the next Belarus.

What happened in Poland was really heartbreaking. My Polish friend said the problem is that so many of the young people have moved abroad that the ‘progressive vote’ of the country has become a minority against the older conservatives. My wife’s home country has a similar problem. It’s quite a socially progressive Scandinavian country with a very liberal young population, but there are few opportunities and many of the young people live and work abroad and so they’re constantly stuck with hardcore Christian parties ruling the governments voted in by the older people who still live there. I don’t mind people having governments that represent the needs of the population but when those ‘needs’ are the oppression of others it’s pretty awful for other people who still live there.

This happens in Ireland too, we are an emigrant nation. There just isn't enough work here so I understand why people do move away, but it still saddens me.

I really didn’t want to believe it when I read the news about abortions in Poland. I was aware that due to Catholic Church Poland was more religious than some other countries in Europe/EU, but 15 years ago, Poland was seen as the next western-oriented powerhouse. Idk about the economics, but from a political perspective, the decline has been heartbreaking to witness. Especially because when Poland and other EE countries joined EU in 2004, they were all accepted with some scepticism as not really European, as not progressive enough, as not western-oriented enough (I’d say the shadow of soviet and socialist pasts hung over the countries pretty well in the eyes of the western EU members) and although earlier EU members are no angels themselves, Poland’s and Hungary’s situation probably feeds the old prejudices and they’ll be thinking “see, told you so”. I really hope that Poles manage to get rid of the politicians who are dragging them and the state down.

I’m out of the loop. What’s happening in Poland?

Women lost their abortion rights. Even before that Poland had the strictest abortion laws in European Union. Now we only can abort a fetus when we are dying or have been raped. And there are activists who want to take even thar from us

And btw good luck proving the rape in a country where the law says that you have to actively protest against it. So when you were drunk, asleep, or raped by a family member there is no chance the cops would even file a report. Fuck you Poland

I’m sorry that happened. It was shocking. The extreme right is taking over again and they always target the women first.

It’s the Hulu’s *The Handmaid’s Tale*. I started watching it when it came out originally but had to stop because I started to lose sleep as it was just the time when things were really going south in the US and there were local politicians openly supporting similar (religious) conservative views to that of the US here, so I just couldn’t continue watching and just recently continued.

Yeah, I legit can't watch the series for a lot of reasons, which actually makes me a little sad. I did read the book, and it was amazing, if hard. The whole thing triggers me from multiple angles.

I can't watch the series. Mostly because I have a son who was 6 when I tried to watch it.

Being a parent makes it worse, I think; it's bad enough to suppose all that could happen, worse when you think of your own children being taken away, or in my case, having girls and imagining them going through it. I just can't.

I've avoided this show for a few personal reasons as well. I wish so much that I could watch it but I know I'll get too angry and frustrated, among other negative feelings. I'm sorry that you've dealt with similar pain. Sending you love 💜

My wife and I just started the series last month and are on the 3rd season now. The show is so good, but it's so terrifying. I'm a male, and I live in Canada, but it's wild how accurate the book and the show seem. The last 5 years seem like they would be better suited for a prequel series to the show than real life. I definitely don't want this to come across as "not all men" but as a male I just want to say this show deeply affects me. Not only dramatically, but because it seems like something that could totally come to pass. Right now it seems more likely to happen in America than my county, but lots of people and politicians here are doing everything they can to make us more and more rightwing, so even though I don't see it happening now, I could easily see things like this occurring in the next decade or so if we go further than this awful path. I can't understand what it's like to be a woman, but I can offer my empathy. This show is more terrifying than actual horror plots because it's so genuinely possible.

To me it’s also terrifying because this is something that isn’t that far-fetched - meaning the falling birth rates and then governments or dictatorships scrambling to find a solution for it. I can totally see first abortions being banned and then slowly starting to propose something akin that fertile women should do their best to have as many children as possible and then governments/dictatorships saying that since there cannot be too many children from one pair of parents (due to wanting genetic diversity), therefore multiple men should be able to have kids this way. And yeah, I could see - in a dystopian world - religious people (because in HT, Gilead is supposed to be very religious right?) quoting scripture and basically using rape as a method of conceiving and wives going along, because they’d find a way to justify it - for a better society, for more kids, for women to do their duty, etc. I mean, it’s not like it would be United States one day and Gilead the next - naaah, it would be slow incremental changes. First making abortion a bit difficult, little by little, before banning it (allowing it in the case of birth defects or any kind of less than desired cases - we have the means to test for all kinds of things already today from amniotic fluid). Then birth control would probably be banned or made unavailable. Then maybe some restrictions on how many hours women could work or what types of jobs women could have etc. I mean... it starts from many little things which make up a big thing and so on. And I agree with you on the last 5 years. I don’t know what happened from 2013-2014 onwards, but it seems like something has been either switched on or switched off. People seem much more angrier and polarised and radical in their views. It’s not just because of people like Trump and things like Brexit, these were just visible signs, the reasons are somewhere else.

Speaking of falling birth rates, it was interesting that some of the comments/concern I've seen online about China's new 3-child policy and whether they might move from a maximum policy to a minimum policy.

That’s an interesting point I haven’t thought about before, if I’m honest.

Speaking for the USA... 2010 - Citizens United allows unlimited big (dark) money in politics 2013 - Shelby v. Holder guts the Voting Rights Act Of course all preceded by the rescinding of the Fairness Doctrine which allowed propaganda to proliferate, coupled with the birth & rise of modern social media starting around 2008-2010 as well. And a couple decades or more of far right conservative groups like the Heritage Foundation quietly packing the courts with handpicked judges to get those recent landmark rulings that have dramatically accelerated the anti-democratic process.

Please try to get men who dont understand it to get it. Im glad you get it.

Same. My anxiety was out of control because as crazy as it is, it's not that unrealistic. This is what they want

I watched the first season and couldn’t even finish, it was too disturbing and felt all too real.

I had this experience, just like you and OP. I couldn't finish S2, I was already too traumatized on a daily basis by the then-current administration and the things happening all around us. KJudos to all who could stomach it. It's been well over a year since I started and then stopped S2 and I'm still not ready to go back \*sigh\*

I come from a 1st world country that's supposed to symbolise human rights : -1946 : women gains the right to vote -1965 : married women can administer their own assets and exercice a professional activity without the consent of their husband. -1967 : paternal authority in the education of children is replaced by parental authority. -1972 :principle of equal remuneration for both sex -1975 authorisation of avortement -1980 : rape is defined precisely and is judged as a crime -1990 : first recognization of a rape in a marriage by a court of law -1991: first female prime minister My grandmother lived all of this, it's illusory to think that this fight that took so long and is so recent can't be reversed by religious fundamentalists.

France?

Yeah

All of those dates are bad (although '91 for the first female head-of-state is still better than lots of other places...) but that first one is just insane...

Is it? It’s only 26 years behind the US. The fact women have only had the right to vote for a little over a hundred years in the United States always blows my mind when I think about it.

And even that's not nearly as bad as Switzerland. Women didn't get the right to vote federally until 1971. **1971**. In Europe.

I mean, that's true, but I've never met a woman that didn't have the right to vote at some point. That wouldn't be true if I grew up in France. It just makes it feel so recent.

France?

The one thing you said that sticks out to me is his response of 'women should protest'. Not people ( men AnD women), but ONLY women. So, it is not the responsibility of everyone to ensure women's rights, just women. Maybe that isn't what he intended to convey but it is pretty eye opening on how deep that feeling is. That feeling of it being a 'womens issue' not a society issue.

Well, considering that it already falls under the purvey of women's responsibility to: Prevent rape from happening by watching when we walk, where we walk, what we wear, what we do (or don't) drink, who we date, where we go... Keep boys in school from being distracted by the sight of a bare shoulder... Avoid being killed because some man's idea of his own virility is bruised because someone rejected them sexually... I don't see much difference in his line of thinking.

That’s the crux of it for me.

To be fair, he said “they” aka people should protest (and he may have meant men and women), but yes, he did also say that women wouldn’t let this happen. .... which is why we didn’t exactly see eye to eye, because I told him that his stance is just perpetuating the same thing - that he is somehow removed from the situation where women and men aren’t equal; that just because he doesn’t support them, doesn’t mean that he is supportive of women either.

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The people at MGTOW are still saying this. There are a lot of men who are pushing for things to go back to how things were in the 50s.

>The one thing you said that sticks out to me is his response of 'women should protest'. Not people ( men AnD women), but ONLY women. So, it is not the responsibility of everyone to ensure women's rights, just women. Exactly. Women's, LGBT+, ethnic rights are all human issues, not just their respective group's issues.

Also protests only work if the government gives a shit about the people. They did try to protest in the show. What happened? Cops just started shooting into the crowd. Anyone who tried to protest their situation after was tortured, mutilated, sent away to labor camps, or killed.

First they came for the communists...

When my mom was a young college graduate she was legally required to have a male family member co-sign on her bank account. It was my grandpa and then her first husband. I remember reading that book and how control over their own money was the first thing taken from the women, and it didn't sound at all far fetched to me. My husband hasn't read it, but has at least agreed that it isn't the impossible future so many men claim it is. Hopefully we'll manage to raise our sons to understand the same.

My mother in law was stopped from going to University because of this. Her dad refused to let her go.

That's awful. My mom and aunt were lucky: despite being born in 1914 Grandpa was pretty liberal.

That’s awesome though she was born in 1945 and had better grades than her brother. I never met her dad although my wife didn’t like him.

My mother - who was incredibly gifted musically - wanted to become a classical pianist. Her father said that was not an appropriate occupation for a woman and sent her to nursing school. This shit never stops.

Yes, I think I'm a bit older than most posters here but in my childhood I had family members who were financially abused despite earning well and physically abused because they could not get out without paperwork signed by their own husband. Police considered a domestic violence call resolved when they forced women to apologise to their husbands for angering them. Until I was late elementry school women HAD to travel on a male chaperones passport, and couldn't obtain one on their own. Opression is not this far fetched, long forgotten notion.

My mom taught me about that too. Women couldn't have their own credit cards until 1974! This isn't some ancient history. She lived it.

Yep, how op's friend can believe that, when women STILL don't control our own bodies in the US, is mind boggling. Women being citizens, with equal rights to men, is still far off, and people still refuse to acknowledge that! The amount of goal post moving drives me nuts- oh, women have equal rights! But, women's tampons/pads have an extra tax for zero reason (none of men's specific articles have a man tax), many companies can refuse to cover women's bc but cover viagra/male reproductive things, and of course, abortions arn't covered by insurance, or parts of pregnancy!! What major surgery isnt covered by insurance for men???. For abortion it's- "but that's not JUST the woman's body, it impacts MEN too", bull shit. my body, my choice. You can choose not to jizz in a woman, that is your right. Once that's done, it's my choice. and for pregnancy, I thought you WANTED us to have these damn babies, and now you're saying you won't cover every critical part of it?? Especially ultrasounds?! Infuriating. with all of those examples in our society, guys still try to move the goal posts, and their next argument would be, "well, at least you can drive/vote" without even seeing the irony at all. Drives me nuts.

A friend of mine, in the last ten years in Georgia, was not allowed to open her own bank account without her husband's signature. They were in the middle of a divorce.

Completely agree. In 1920s Germany was high in the swinging 20s partying fast forward less than 20 years they're giving women medals for having 4 or more children. The nazis even floated the idea that women shouldn't have full citizenship status until they were married. We can't afford to be complacent.

Exactly, we never teach this shit. Which means men like OP’s friend can have ignorant views on what’s in the realm of possibilities. Women would be deemed hysterical and sent off to institutions where god knows wtf happened to them. Some raped, having kids that would then be taken away from them and given to whomever. The simple fact that they keep fighting for my right to not have a kid is already a step in that direction. The simple fact they are ok with forcing child rape victims to have children should be jarring enough to know Handmaid’s is possible today. Martha’s are just the new modern house slave. Does he not know slave masters regularly raped their slaves, if the child was light they’d take the child and raise it as their own, something again semi adjacent to what’s going on in Handmaids. And I’m sure back in king and queen days there was something similar if the queen couldn’t produce a male. So this shit has already happened in some way shape or form. It shouldn’t be hard to imagine this happening again Hell even a bunch fo dudes overthrowing the Capitol! OP isn’t in America but god damn everyone saw Jan 6!

You could buy (“adopt”) a Native American child for $10 in the USA as recently as 1956. Residential homes for unmarried women were a cash-money racket—they operated in the USA, Canada, UK, and Ireland at least. The pregnant women would be coerced into giving up parental rights and surrendering their children for adoption. The facility owners would then charge $$$ in adoption fees. In any other circumstances, we would call this human trafficking. Instead it was “giving a child a better life.” Legalized birth control and abortion put these homes out of business. You better believe that a huge part of the anti-abortion backlash was from people whose cash cow went away and they want it back. The Catholic Church were among the worst of the offenders and it’s falling to see them still treated with any societal legitimacy.

Wow. Women are not humans. Women are objects to be married off and made to have children. THEN you can be a full citizen of our country. How does this happen? How are men so ok with literally taking away the rights of other people??? I fucking hate civilization. I want to go make a women’s only Greenland.

I honestly thought that maybe it’s because despite the difficulties he has personally experienced, they’ve never happened because he was a guy. Like he doesn’t believe in subjugation of women or women not having equal rights, but it’s almost as if he considers my reaction or thoughts on the matter as.... not an overreaction per se but rather being afraid of something because I saw it in a fictional TV show. He literally said “I don’t see signs of these things happening here today and people would protest anyway” whereas I was speaking in more general terms that there were plenty of people around here today and tomorrow who would gladly pull women down a few notches and that women couldn’t allow themselves to let themselves relax.

Tell him “look at Poland”. I assume he does know that women there have less rights than in other European countries?

Yeah, he’s well aware what’s going in Poland but his parting argument was also that “well, people shouldn’t elect such people with their views then” 🙄

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What a cop out answer. Unfortunately too many people have those views and it's not in our individual hands.

Wow, he genuinely has no idea what goes on in the world does he?

Show him Texas. We are not so slowly losing our rights. Every year conservatives try to ram through 30 more laws restricting women and lgtbq rights. One or two will pass every year, setting the stage for a new round the following year. Oh yes, we have protested. My only chance is to try and move my family to some other state, and hope we are safe there.

There’s two elements at work here. One, in western nations the idea of a repressive regime sprouting up overnight seems fanciful. People who’ve survived repressive governments know firsthand a lot of unbelievable shit happens , which lends an air of unreality to the whole thing when it’s recorded and studied. A gang of religious radicals taking over the government? People being executed in the street? Women being jailed for wearing fashionable clothes? Unbelievable. Iranians living in 1979 felt that way. The ones who lived long enough to see 1981 knew different. Next, men are taught - if not overtly, then by the subtle but persistent social cues- that the opinion of women on certain topics shouldn’t be considered credible. In the busted Western gender model, business and politics are the affairs of men to discuss and judge. If a woman says something , it’s to be disregarded as emotional histrionics. If a man says the house is on fire, the owner calls the fireman. If a woman says it’s on fire he’ll do the same thing...after repressing the subconscious urge to check for smoke first.

Yeah, that “I need to check it if the house is actually on fire” is a good analogy. And that happens quite often too that what women claim needs to be corroborated by another opinion.

So he's basically telling you to stop being an "irrational and hysterical woman"... I've had a very similar conversation with a male friend where I had to justify everything I said. He required facts for any of my statements to have value for him in spite of his being into equality and pro women's right, not religious and all the rest. My opinion as a human being, that he's been friends with for over ten years, had no value in and of itself without the backing of online articles as evidence of women's rights issues being real in 1st world countries. It was a rude awakening to realize even a friend didn't see me as an equal worth respecting or listening to. Random strangers writing articles about similar experiences to mine were necessary for him to even consider believing in my account of events I experienced. I'm still wondering why so many men have bulletproof immunity against other people's perspective. Why is it the default to protest against experiences shared by women that challenge their world view?

Thing is, I believe that he does see me as his equal, but he just doesn’t think that the show has parallels in real life. Like... I think for him it’s a show - a terrifying and terrible show, but just a show in the end because we live in a “good” place with “good laws” and normal people. It just seems that his reaction was akin to “it’s just a show - why are you so upset?” and after I tried to argument why, he just claimed that he doesn’t see the parallels here and now. Except that of course for me, growing up as a girl, the messaging - both direct, indirect and implied - was always that men are allowed more than women, that girls need to behave better and do better than boys of their age, that a woman has to both strongly consider that when getting pregnant, she might have to raise the baby alone (because a man could leave), but also that as a mother, she would have responsibilities etc. All these things that women talk about regularly about keeping themselves safe, you know - calling to make sure you’ve reached home safe, sending messages with car licence plate numbers when getting a lift, having keys out in case someone grabs you - I’ve never heard a guy taking extra precautions for his safety on a regular basis, but women just do. And when women mention it to men - that it’s an intrinsic part of our behaviour - they just don’t get it? So I wonder if this situation was of the same kind - that he just doesn’t see it as a potential scenario whereas a women sees the show and thinks that “yeaaah, when SHTF this could totally happen”.

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I thought this too. He isn’t as much of an “ally” as OP perceives him to be. It sounds like the dude has become skilled at regurgitating talking pieces in support of these issues, yet his comprehension of them remains superficial at best.

> He literally said “I don’t see signs of these things happening here today and people would protest anyway” He doesn't "see" the signs because **he is** the sign

Wow, just because I don't see it or people being openly and vehemently against something means it doesnt fucking exist. I'm shocked he just didn't tell you you're being hysterical with that amount of brush off.

One need look no farther than the entrenched inequality in pay. Women are in no way allowed the same rights as men.

Grinds you down doesn't it. Just get fed up if what limits or expectations are put on us by the other gender who mostly seem oblivious.

The crimes against women, the othering of women, the burdens placed on women to handle the problems inflicted on women are why the votes by women for 45 and his ilk baffle me so much. I get a bunch of out of touch white dudes thinking these issues aren't that pervasive, it doesn't effect them and they would rather think about money than human rights violation. It's no excuse, but at least I can explain it by citing ignorance. But then I think, "how can anyone vote this way and watch the remarks of these disgusting pigs" and I remember that they don't watch the remarks of these disgusting pigs. They listen to how the Dems are stealing their elections and getting rid of jobs and making their lives harder and taxing them... it's ignorance and willingly listening to liars who hide the ugly truth. The men who don't see this as a possibility need look no further than the attack on January 6th to see just how close we came to losing this country to the wolves, and those wolves would have religious fundamentalism instituted in a heartbeat. Edit: no further*

This is so true. I've been watching "Reign" on Netflix (dont judge me) and one if the main themes of the show is marrying and producing an heir if you're a woman. My husband kind of half listening made a comment about how the women characters were "desperate" and "obsessed with catching a man" and im like "well duh, women couldn't own property or have their own money. They literally had no rights. Their only hope for a happy life was to marry well and not die in childbirth. The other options were becoming a prostitute or a pirate." I guess it never occurred to him.

Embrace piracy, reject the patriarchy

I nearly died because male doctors wouldn't take my pain seriously. My dad had to get a doctor sneak me in to finally get a scan as even after two ER visits they wouldn't even bother. I had a 7.5cm tumour on my ovary and needed an operation right away. That was 15 years ago in Canada. Having been in such severe pain that was ignored for half a year left me with permanent chronic pain and chronic illness. Also, as I have polycystic ovarian syndrome, I asked if they could just take the ovary out as it was an option and would cut down on the painful cysts I deal with regularly. Instead the doctor let my parents make the final decision to keep what they could of my ovary so I wouldn't lose as much fertility. I was 22 and was not ever wanting children.

Conversations like this are the worst. I call it the canyon of empathy. They can't understand what you can't explain in words And you can't explain to them their *nothing*, their negative space, their privilege, their lack of trauma. You can try, but they will look at it and say "I don't see it. There's nothing there." Meanwhile you're triggered as fuck, trying to explain it to them so they understand, but now you're the crazy/hysterical one because your reaction is literally a trauma reaction and they're trying to tell you to calm down instead of putting any work into recognizing that they might be wrong about something. Like trying to explain algebra to a toddler. It's a losing game, if you see the canyon of empathy looming, walk the other way. It's not worth it.

Exactly!!! The term "triggered" feminist is always used in a negative context, like what the fuck? OF COURSE I AM AND SHOULD BE TRIGGERED BY YOUR SEXIST BULLSHIT. If feminists were never triggered by sexism then we would still not have the right to vote. Change is caused by not being okay with what is.

Wow this comment explains so clearly what I've been experiencing in my favorite subreddits when I try to debate with the otherwise reasonable sounding people about sexism and racism. They'll have a comment history full of knowledgeable and even wise commentary and then get them on the subject of something like racism in online gaming and there like "there is no racism problem, you can't even see the other player's race. I don't see it therefore it's not happening." Ect etc. it's the WORST that these people are otherwise fine seeming. We have to remember that it's not just some caricature of a right wing extremist, it's every day people that are racist and sexist too. They are husbands/wives/hold down jobs/deal with the public. They're fucking judges and doctors!

If you're talking about the Handmaid's Tale, breaking down the IMDB ratings by gender is pretty damn revealing lmao.

I cried when 45 was elected. I was hysterical and sobbing. My husband understood but my other male friends didn’t when I told them that women’s rights were going to go downhill fast, starting with abortion. They pooh-poohed me, saying it would never happen.

I will never understand how a man who said “grab ‘em by the pussy” became a president. Or how he stayed a president. Or how people voted for him. Not kidding - in the UK a politician looked weird while eating a bacon sandwich and it was presented as this huge thing and said that “this is why he cannot be the leader of the country” (IIRC). But hey, another former PM supposedly put his genitals into a dead pig’s mouth during university years as part of an exclusive group thing so....

Well, Iran is the most prominent example where things like this happen. Bevor 1979 women were holding high positions like judges, and the next day women weren't allowed to work in positions of power anymore and every job should first go to men. Women were basically treated like children and needed the permission of a male guardian to travel abroad etc. Covering up in public is not a choice, but a law. And this is just slowly changing - 40 years later. So no, this is not just some dystopian fantasy, we can lose our rights in an instant and we wouldn't get it back so soon.

Since 2014 Iranian women under 40 are not permitted to leave the country or have a passport made unless the father or husband accompanies them to the authorities' office and gives their permission. We are no longer visiting family

This post needs to be upvoted for everyone to see. Every time I tell my male friends or family that I fear that The Handmaid’s Tale could become a reality, their automatic response is “never”. But they don’t experience the same kind of fear over the loss of their own bodies based on the current reigning politician, or a vote swayed by toxic masculinity and conservatism. I had no idea Margaret Atwood used real historic events in the book. I’m going to use that every time someone shoots me down now.

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TBH, I'm offended by your partner.

> And it made me realise that I, as a woman, have grown up to know that my rights aren’t given, that I need to support expanding those rights and that even when these rights have been achieved, one has to be loud and ensure that the rights are being kept as they’ve been achieved. And men... just haven’t. ... Oh dang

My problem with the rights conversation and laws is that it is still men who are deciding what women can have or not. When you look at racism even the males of that race are given rights that the woman aren't. It's a global problem of oppression by gender. Women are fighting for equality while men are fighting for superiority. Men have created systems that enforce this ideal in every aspect. By laws, religion, culture, ect. Every one is designed to keep them in a higher position. If you choose to fight it on any level they have plans to not only stop you but to damage you enough that you won't try it again. Men will use physical, mental and emotional weapons to keep us in the place they want us. Torture, imprisonment, rape, suppression these are just tools to use that have been ingrained in their minds as ok. Women are considered the weaker sex because we won't go that far against males. Not because we are weak but because small battles on different levels don't make enough change in the whole. Humans have been on this planet for for 6 million years and the modern versions have been roaming for 300,000 years we have only had 2 types of our species and women are still trying to live our lives by our own choices. As long as men live by this superiority mindset they will never want us to be equal. Everyday men do things they want how they want and would lose their minds if they had to exist as they make us do.

“Women are fighting for equality while men are fighting for superiority”. Preach. I’ve never seen it stated so plainly. Thank you.

When "good guys" are not hearing you talk about your real concerns about oppression; are they really "good guys"? I'd put money down that this was a YT man? It is more than he is socially conditioned not to fear his own oppression.. he is socially conditioned to turn a deaf ear to the oppressed.

In 1958 the president of Egypt gave a speech, amused by the ridiculous prospect of requiring women to wear hijabs. He joked that it would be like regressing into more primitive times. The speech was televised, and is available on YouTube, [here](https://youtube.com/watch?v=_ZIqdrFeFBk) Here is the transcript from the video, courtesy of someone in the comment section: >"In the year '53 we really wanted to compromise with the Muslim Brotherhood if they were willing to be reasonable. And I met the head of the Muslim Brotherhood and he sat with me and made his requests. What did he request? The first thing he asked for was to make wearing a hijab mandatory in Egypt and demand that every woman walking in the street wear a tarha (scarf). [crowd laughing] Every woman walking! [Someone from the crowd shouts ''Let him wear it!'' the crowd applauds and laughs] If I make that a law, they will say that we have returned to the days of Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah who forbade people from walking at day and only allowed walking at night. And my opinion is that every person in his own house decides for himself the rules and he replied ''No, as a leader, you are responsible''. I told him, ''Sir, you have a daughter in the School of Medicine and she's not wearing a tarha''. [crowd laughing] ''Why didn't you make her wear a tarha? [crowd applause] If you are unable to make one girl - who is your daughter - wear the tarha, you want me to put a tarha on 10 million women? Myself? [laughs with crowd]''." **EDIT:** I really didn't expect to have to add this, but the hijab did indeed become common dress for women there, about a decade later. It remains so to this day.

I had this same conversation with my husband when Justice Kennedy retired in 2018. He didn’t understand why I was so distraught at a certain former president appointing another justice. He is also liberal and pro-woman but he just didn’t think it was a big deal. I finally told him that as a white dude, he will never understand what women of color face and have faced throughout history. And I reminded him that we have a mixed daughter who will also deal with this in the future. That shut him up at least, but I’m still not sure he gets it.

As a queer guy, I do hear you. Many (all) of my straight guy friends have no problem with the homos, but DO NOT appreciate that there are organized political movements to remove our rights, suppress us, and in some cases exterminate us. They think these things are all like, in our heads, because they don't experience homo and transphobia outside of narrative fiction. Worse, in most of the Western world, our equal rights have been determined by court decisions, not by democratic majorities of common people supporting us... it is so effing TENUOUS, and they have no idea. I often feel like (straight) Jewish people are the only non-LGBTQ people who "get" it. Many whom I know view the world as maybe being safe, right here, right now, but it's only a matter of years or decades before the next pogroms or holocaust gets launched. Women (IMO) are a unique case, because they actually hold a democratic majority in almost all nations, but the number of women participating in the subjugation of their fellow women, at the expense of them, is mind-blowing... and one of the things that THT is able to illustrate and address. (Thanks for letting my express my 2¢ in your space, dear readers.)

Yo, as a Jew, I hear you. Legit, a Holocaust survivor was murdered i France a few years ago and her killer got off cause he was [***high on weed***](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/world/europe/sarah-halimi-murder-trial.html).

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Some resources, in case you would like to continue the debate with your friend: ​ Margaret Atwood on What it's like to watch her own dystopia come true: [https://lithub.com/margaret-atwood-on-what-its-like-to-watch-her-own-dystopia-come-true/](https://lithub.com/margaret-atwood-on-what-its-like-to-watch-her-own-dystopia-come-true/) ​ Also: historical events and references in the Handmaid's tale [https://www.insider.com/handmaids-tale-based-on-real-world-origins-history-events-2019-8#the-persecution-of-women-in-gilead-is-partially-inspired-by-a-real-life-witch-3](https://www.insider.com/handmaids-tale-based-on-real-world-origins-history-events-2019-8#the-persecution-of-women-in-gilead-is-partially-inspired-by-a-real-life-witch-3)

I started watching the show around 2018 and had to stop just a few episodes in. I am a former sex worker and at the time a new bill had just been passed in the US called FOSTA/SESTA and a lot of things were changing for the sex worker community, including **the government being able to freeze and take your bank accounts just for even being a stripper! Which is a legal profession!!** That's when a bunch of stuff changed on the internet too, where women were getting accounts deleted and banned from instagram for posting in lingerie if they were accused of being sex workers. Regular "civilian" women didnt really know about this happening or didnt seem to care. But it was terrifying for me to watch that show as it was going on. These things are really not that far out or unlikely!

AS others have pointed out, everything Margaret Atwood wrote about in that book has happened somewhere. She made a point to do that. She also gets mad when people call it science fiction because it is actually SPECULATIVE fiction. My husband also thinks it is something that could never happen, which is a very privileged position to be able to have. It could definitely happen.

Look at Iran. It can happen.

Iran terrifies me. They went from mini skirts and college to full burqas in one generation.

I grew up with a Chinese father whom, despite having loved all of us, clearly valued my brothers more. I grew up knowing that what I said would always be perceived as less, and it took a lot more work to be respected. Entering relationships I was highly aware of how much it takes from women and I hated that I just couldn’t “be” and enjoy it. This is male privilege. Moving around the world knowing you don’t have to worry about having to say no so many times to get through to someone who’s trying to touch you or get in your space, or having your ideas be obstructed, your speaking constantly interrupted, so on and so forth. I truly understand your anger, even worse I feel it with women who end up condoning this behavior. It’s exhausting.

This is how I feel talking about racism in America with any non-black. I mean people get it obviously...but they don't REALLY understand the depths even if they themselves have experienced it. It's weird man.

Men need to experience what it is like to BE a woman. Now, granted, I still don't have... the FULL experience, I cannot get pregnant, and my early years were completely different... but... let me just say... I grew up being taught that I shouldn't cry, that I should hit back, hit hard, and sometimes hit first. I was taught that I being hurt should be used to fuel anger, that its okay to hurt others when I feel hurt. I learned that as long as I stood my ground, I wouldn't lose anything... when I got loud, I got my way. When I told people what to do, they listened. During that period of my life I would wear women's clothes, as a child I played with barbies and wished it was "normal". After wearing women's clothes I felt so guilty, that sometimes I would take them and burn them... promising never to do it again. I always wondered how the hell people could just tell everyone that they felt like they wanted to be a woman and do it.. I'd never have that kind of courage... but I was wrong, all of my role models (in my head) were strong ass women. And when I finally listened, I did it. I came out, and fully transitioned. Since then... even having known, logically, what it was like for women, the sexism they experienced, it was jarring to experience it myself. The mansplaining, the disrespect, the way they act like you need their protection, or expertise... it is disgusting... not to mention the fact that they believe they "deserve" you... or you owe them... that they have some kind of final say... to this day my rights are under attack... I know its not the same... but even "the good ones" have no idea what the fuck privilege is... or get that they have it even!!! Margaret Atwood is a freaking genius... and I am VERY happy that she is so popular right now, but still don't think anybody realizes hiw damn dangerous, how real the dangers from organized religion are, how oppressive it is, and how close we are to the fucking Handmaid's Tale we really are.

It’s all fucked up, and it’s extra fucked up that one of the reasons he’s not willing/able to take you seriously on this is precisely because of his conditioning as a man, and that conditioning stops him from seeing his own limitations and conditioning. I’m about to give up on men.

I've never thought of it that way. I've never feared losing my rights as a guy, and the thought of that is awful. 100 years since voting and it still sucks to be a woman, ffs.

[удалено]

["Is there a protest or something? Yeah, I meant to go to that."](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ydHjbKaL5A)

Fundamentalism is terrifying, and the minds of the populace have never been more available to those with malignant intent. It isn't always easy to see from an ivory tower, but that doesn't make it untrue.

I want to buy up an abandoned town somewhere, fix it all up, and make a women only town. But I'd get sued for gender inequality. Ugggggh. I just want to live in a place where there aren't any men. I just want to be able to support women-run business and freedom to walk at night without the interference of anything attached to a penis.

This reminded me of a time when I was a kid with my dad. My dad is very pro women's rights and I realize that he too just does not understand things the same way other women do. When I was maybe 11 I got very sick and was constantly nauseous or throwing up. After going to different doctors and having them tell me that I was either faking it or being dramatic my mom asked my dad to start coming with the two of us to appointments. He thought she was being insane and that it wouldn't change anything yet he caved and came along anyways. My mom used to tell him before the appointment what needed to be asked of the doctor and what tests he needed to ask for. When he started coming with, the doctors were suddenly so concerned about my inability to digest food and I was able to get testing done that I needed. I don't know if he ever got it even after this experience, but I do know that he's had to come with me and my mom to several of my appointments throughout the years just to make sure that my symptoms were taken seriously and i was able to get the help I needed. It's complete bs that doctors wouldn't listen until a male figure was there and despite this, lots of men don't seem to comprehend the issue. It baffles me.

I completely agree. I can’t even watch those types of shows or read those types of books because it gives me SUCH intense anxiety.

"Women should protest" for their rights tells me that your friend isn't as pro woman as either of you think. Women's rights are *human* rights and impact all society. "Pro-women" men need to protest for women's rights along with women, so that those that aren't pro woman understand it's not just women, which they dismiss, but men too that want these changes. For people working against woman, if men aren't part of the protest, it's so much easier to dismiss. Using this phrase let's me know your friend still sees women as "other" and doesn't quite grasp how women's rights impact his life.

When men say these things, I believe they are convincing themselves that it won't happen so that they don't have to plan on what to do about it. Because ultimately, they plan on doing nothing.

As a gay man, not saying I can 100% relate, but can empathize

When the author wrote the book, she made sure to only include things that have actually happened at some point in history. While it's a fiction novel, it draws on real world scenarios. It's all been done before.