History of Feminism
Related: About this forumThis book has been banned in many schools - about controlling women's reproduction (and all else)
Last edited Tue Apr 3, 2012, 04:02 PM - Edit history (1)
Years ago when I first read The Handmaid's Tale, I couldn't put it down. I had to read the whole thing, then re-read it to make sure I'd absorbed everything. I couldn't believe it. I had had misgivings about many Republican ideas floating about at that time, and which unfortunately are still around, like flotsam, stinking up our country:
1) The idea that women belonged in the home, that women choosing their destiny was destroying the country.
2) Watching certain women proclaim that the women's movement was bad for women -
trying to destroy the women's movement, such as Phyllis Schlafly was doing.
3) The notion that abortion was a murder.
4) So-called "feminists" who felt that women were being denied the "right" to be homemakers. (What kind of bullshit was that?)
And much more.
And then all of a sudden appeared The Handmaid's Tale. It might appear a bit sci-fi and futuristic, but in truth it's a very clear look at what our country would be like if right wing "Christians" (and yes, the quotations are intentional), took over. It scared the living daylights out of me and still does, because it's all too real. Their motives and what they seek even in 2012, are made evident in the book. They're still trying to destroy women's rights, as we know all too well if we read the news.
Here's an excerpt from an article published this year about this polemic 1980s book which tells it like it is about right wing "Christians":
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/jan/20/handmaids-tale-margaret-atwood
The Handmaid's Tale has not been out of print since it was first published, back in 1985. It has sold millions of copies worldwide and has appeared in a bewildering number of translations and editions. It has become a sort of tag for those writing about shifts towards policies aimed at controlling women, and especially women's bodies and reproductive functions...
...The Handmaid's Tale has often been called a "feminist dystopia", but that term is not strictly accurate. In a feminist dystopia pure and simple, all of the men would have greater rights than all of the women. It would be two-layered in structure: top layer men, bottom layer women. But Gilead is the usual kind of dictatorship: shaped like a pyramid, with the powerful of both sexes at the apex, the men generally outranking the women at the same level; then descending levels of power and status with men and women in each, all the way down to the bottom, where the unmarried men must serve in the ranks before being awarded an Econowife...
...Like any theocracy, this one would select a few passages from the Bible to justify its actions, and it would lean heavily towards the Old Testament, not towards the New. Since ruling classes always make sure they get the best and rarest of desirable goods and services, and as it is one of the axioms of the novel that fertility in the industrialised west has come under threat, the rare and desirable would include fertile women always on the human wish list, one way or another and reproductive control. Who shall have babies, who shall claim and raise those babies, who shall be blamed if anything goes wrong with those babies? These are questions with which human beings have busied themselves for a long time...
no_hypocrisy
(46,137 posts)Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)hifiguy
(33,688 posts)I wouldn't be surprised to see Orwell's 1984 being banned, either.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)for the kids to choose, sophomore AP english.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)They're the ones that tell the truth, the ones that cause one to think, the ones that open up discussion about those things in our society that are wrong, which is why it's always right wing "Christians" that are censoring those books.
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)but, what i have been thrilled and proud of here in this area of texas is the education board is all about education.
our house, kids read animal farm, 1984 at young ages and many others. we very much embrace all types of reading.
but the schools, over 95% republican have always done well respecting differing views, from the very small percent that speak out. my two boys, lol
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)and where it got started. I researched it all on my own just to know for sure. In fact, I requested materials from the people that started it.
A testament to these a-hs is that they started it from home, and now censorship is widespread everywhere college textbooks are to be published.
Here's a wiki that will give more info on who the fathers of such vast right wing censorship are:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_and_Norma_Gabler
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)but it did not effect our schools.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)seabeyond
(110,159 posts)and i didnt have to. yea.
amazing.
d_r
(6,907 posts)she went to all gotls schoil though
HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)Not telling us anything new. We lived, and fought against this. Certain religions feed these views, i.e, listen to Santorum's off the cuffs statements.
What we need to do is to teach the younger generation of women what they face.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)HockeyMom
(14,337 posts)they lost me when I was 15 years old in 1963. Besides as an only child by choice of my parents, I got sick of the way they treated females, including the nuns in school. Yeah, the old nuns were brainwashed, but the young nuns were constantly fighting against their anti female views. Hell, I saw a married female teacher forced to resign when she became pg. Excuse me? This is what your religion wants and teaches. Marry and make babies. I suppose the hidden message with that (as Pope Ricky said), women should stop working to marry and make babies. That is a female's lot in lot. I didn't agree with that in 1963, and I most certainly don't, in 2012.
We are fighting all the issues to 50s and 60s again in the 21st century; mostly because of RELIGION.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)militant as fundamentalist right wing "Christianity." My sister fell out with the Catholic Church but quickly was recruited into fundamentalist Christian churches. (3 of them, in succession - a glutton for punishment). Those places were militant!!! An incredible amount of propaganda, and they'd propagandize themselves, each other and outsiders. Critical!!! Oh, and tremendous, underlying hatred. It was their sick views about the needy, and how they brought their bad fortune upon themselves that ultimately caused her to drop out of that crap. She now has enough material to write a really eye-opening book. She doesn't because she's too busy with special needs kids (she adopted).
seabeyond
(110,159 posts)i found best academics for the kids and a general christianity. by 2002 it had moved to fundamentalism. wow, as a calif i had a lot to learn
Smilo
(1,944 posts)and its bloody good.
Instead of being banned this should be required reading/viewing.
Of course, then the righties would have to admit that this is what they want for America.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)aren't stupid, and can detect criticism. Right wing nutjobs don't want to be criticized. They want to be obeyed.
Shana
(16 posts)I use an ATM.
Also, several years ago we spent a family vacation at a lovely resort in Ontario. All the rising 10th graders were reading their required summer reading book, which was The Handmaid's Tale. I know it's partly because Margaret Atwood is Canadian, but I like to think it helps to explain why Canadians seem so much more sensible than us when it comes to human rights and freedoms.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)they wield and have wielded such power. Any views on that?
TNLib
(1,819 posts)But why would it be banned from a school is beyond me.
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)their ideologies pointed out as harmful to humans, I guess.
Here's what one website says:
Atwood critiques fundamentalist religions as well as caste societies and the military.
At the time of its publication the novel provoked much discussion and debate. The Handmaids Tale is listed as one of the 100 most frequently challenged books from 1990 to 1999 on the American Library Associations website. The Canadian Library Association (remember Atwood is Canadian) says there is no known instance of a challenge to this novel in Canada but says the book was called anti-Christian and pornographic by parents after being placed on a reading list for secondary students in Texas in the 1990s.
It has been reviewed this year in some places (including Canada) because of complaints over sexuality and criticism of religious fundamentalism.
http://schol.wordpress.com/2009/10/25/should-the-handmaids-tale-be-banned/
MadrasT
(7,237 posts)I couldn't put it down, either.
The only thing that scares me about teaching it in schools is the idea that fundie kids might think it is a good plan.
I am only half joking...
Sarah Ibarruri
(21,043 posts)It's been my experience that fundie families are really f'cked up mentally.
Warren DeMontague
(80,708 posts)Excellent read on the dangers of the authoritarian fundamentalist mindset and the threat it poses to womens' freedom and self determination.