The global issues present in The Handmaids Tale and the articles written by Moira Donegan are very similar. They both portray the disadvantages of being a woman within society, though one is non-fiction and the other is fiction, the systematic and institutionalised oppression of women and the subconscious acceptance or blind eye towards male superiority and dominance.
Coming up with a global are that related to both texts was fairly easy as I had a good understanding of both. Our multiple reads of The Handmaids Tale really helped me to understand the small details in the novel and the “hidden” messages behind what Atwood wrote. The straightforward and intuitive writting by Donegan made it very simple to comprehend what she was trying to portray, or protest against. As I began to think about the issues present in both these texts I realised that politics, power and justice was the biggest, most present one, within the two bodies of text. In the article by Moira Donegan, recounting the testimony by Christine Blasey Ford during Brett Kavanaugh’s trial, it is evident that there is still a fundamental problem with the US justice system: male superiority and impunity. The fact Ford was a woman meant she had to conceal her emotions and pretend to be something or feel things she wasn’t necessarily feeling at the moment because she knew that her anger could be “punished, ridiculed or taken as a sign of lack of credibility”. That really made me think. Why is it that women have to change their way in order to get something? How do we think that rights for women have in fact changed when things like this still happen today with people believed to be “privileged” due to race?
This same global area is present in THT as men hold far higher power in regards to women. Women are shamelessly objectified and stripped of their rights as humans. They have only one purpose in life and that is to procreate. With men being the providers, decision-makers and leaders of the household and country women are left with nothing or little to live for. Although this is a much deeper and fantastical reality than that of Donegan’s articles it is similar in the sense that women’s rights are still limited and that despite the common thought of there finally being equality we are still far from that.
This led me to think of the following global issue: the widespread acceptance of male superiority and oppression of women. Of course this is isn’t true for many people but it is still a reality in many different places. Some continue to believe that women are inferior to men and that they are of less value. This is, directly or indirectly portrayed in both texts and is a possible IO topic I could focus on.
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