A Society Without Feminism

All throughout my copy of The Handmaid's Tale, there are marginal marks like "What the fuck," "Are you serious?!" and "Asshole right-wing religious rhetoric." Actually, when I say marks, what I mean is I literally scribbled in the margins about how fucked up the Gilead society was. I think what really frightened me (as well as pissed me off) was that it could really happen.

And, more importantly, I could let this happen.

I'm not suggesting that if given the opportunity, I would don a long red dress and a hat with unflattering white wings and prostitute myself for an impotent son of a bitch patriarch. I'm saying that when it comes down to it, my self-preservationist instinct would (more likely than not) lead me to be a complicit participant in this society. And that bothers the hell out of me.

A particular passage relevant to my interests is in the aply named Salvaging (chapter 41): "By telling you anything at all I'm at least believing in you, I believe you're there, I believe you into being. Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are."

There's a lot going on in this relatively small passage. Not only does Atwood rhetorically draw you into the story and make you an active participant, but she makes it your duty to prevent this kind of world--she makes you accountable. The "I tell, therefore you are" is more likely than not an allusion to Descartes' "I think, therefore I am," but again Atwood shapes and creates her own meaning with it. Rather than think, which has been associated throughout history as masculine, she choses tell--the reclamation of women's stories and validation of their experiences is integral to feminism. The final you are in opposition to I am once again draws you into the story; our existance is affected by Offred's experience in that it forces us to look at how we are oppressed in our own lives, and makes us accountable to both ourselves and human kind in general so as to not let something like Gilead happen again.

But the thing is, Gilead has happened in one form or another. And women as well as men have let things like this happen. Decent people who were too afraid of the consequences of rebellion. Fear is a powerful tool, and under the regime of our highly-esteemed former president Bush, reproductive rights have slowly been chipped away, phones of people who don't fit the description of WASP have been (illegally) tapped, and thousands of American soliders have died (or been emotioally scarred) for the almighty fucking dollar.

And we let it happen.

I'm not saying that it's any individual's fault, or that there hasn't been feminist (and non-feminist) resistance to these injustices, but the fact that a son of a bitch like George Junior could get away with things like this is inexcusable.

I guess what really made me blog about this is that sometimes I feel like I'm not a good enough feminist because I'm not out on the front lines marching in equality parades (or what have you). Instead, I sit and blog about how pissed I am. Sure, going to school is a pretty legit way to forward and enhance my feminist consciousness...but am I being too academic at the expense of political activism that's going to actually invoke change?

Oh, and here's a really irrelevant picture of me being Rosie the Riveter: