4 The Handmaid’s Tale Storylines That Are Horribly Close To Reality
Gilead may seem like a completely fictional place, but some of the things that happen there are part of real life.
The Handmaid's Tale is definitely one of those shows that you can only watch with your hand over your mouth because you are gasping in shock every other moment. Well, that's no surprise, since the main action takes place in Gilead, a fictional country built on total dictatorship and terrifying rules.
The story follows June Osbourne, who was trapped in Gilead and forced to be a surrogate mother in a terrible futuristic world where women are forced into sexual slavery to increase the human population.
Although the show is about a fictional world, there are many things that happen there that we can unfortunately relate to in our real world.
4. Salem Witch Trials
The Handmaid's Tale uses some disturbing historical moments in its narrative. For example, one of the main storylines of the show was the punishment of the women of Gilead.
And that's nothing new in our world. Many women who had done nothing wrong were persecuted during the Salem Witch Trials in 1962-1962 in public, just like it happened many times in the show.
3. Female dress codes
This little detail is quite uncomfortable. In Gilead, the government uses dress codes as a form of control over female citizens.
Due to the same clothes, we always know who we are dealing with – whether they are Marthas, Handmaids, or even Commander's wives (even though their dress code is not the one originally specified).
The same thing still happens today in many religious communities. Women are forced to wear the same baggy clothes so as not to be different from each other.
2. Sexist women
While it is really unusual to see a woman who is in favor of a sexist government, that is exactly what we see from Serena Joy in The Handmaid's Tale. She even claimed to have written some of the rules of Gilead herself.
But even this story is not as fictional as it seems. Anti-feminism was actually a trend in the 50's and 60's. And women like Phyllis Schlafly became advocates of traditional gender roles, forcing women to be sole housewives and mothers.
1. Female genital mutilation
One of the most frightening things that happens in The Handmaid's Tale, among hundreds of other things, is female genital mutilation. There are many characters on the show who suffer from it. But as wild and cruel as that seems, it kills us to admit that it's still happening today.
It is still practiced in certain parts of Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe. FGM is one of the most disturbing factors of The Handmaid's Tale, but it also reminds the audience that the problem is real and needs to be addressed.