“They are active architects of the system.” Yep. This is Serena through and through. Are they really gonna tell a woman, “Look, I know I held your wrists down while my husband raped you, but I was oppressed too.” 🙄 Gtfoh.
The show makes sure to show how complicit Serena is over and over again. She IS the architect. Even while she is being victimized by it over and over again, she keeps choosing to defend and justify it, thinking she can reform it’s cruelty just enough to not only maintain her position of authority, but to gain more.
And, in later seasons, it also shows how June is complicit by trusting certain men in the machine who she should not have trusted… even though they displayed they could be trusted, they’ll always choose their power & position first, too.
Exactly right. I have read that book many times, taught with that book, and each and every time, I arrive at the same conclusion: they were complicit first and foremost.
Similar to how women in Muslim culture ensure their daughters get genital mutilation and gets married off at a young age to a cousin, uncle etc, except that actually happens and is not a work of fiction
I’ve read the book, haven’t watched the show. It’s very clear in Atwood’s story that Serena Joy and the other wives are complicit. They aren’t happy with the situation but they are actively supporting it because that’s what they know how to do. As a white woman I’ve seen this dynamic my whole effing life. I’ve stopped spending time in white cishet women’s groups because as a queer neurodivergent woman I can’t deal with the culture of cisheteropatriarchal complicity and the silencing of WOC and anyone else who doesn’t fit the skinny white blown out sorority Barbie ideal. It’s the 900# purple gorilla 🦍 the room that they all pretend not to see and it breaks my brain 🧠
Yes! This exactly. I don't get why women throw away their power when we'd be far more powerful as a whole. Buying into white patriarchy is such a foolish move.
I read the book. It won’t change your interpretation of the story because you’re absolutely correct in your assertion. I was frustrated to no end that the women just complied… like, what if they’d resisted? You gonna kill them all? Then what? Who’s doing the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, who’s keeping the population going without women to have babies? The wives were very much complicit in what transpired, and any woman saying otherwise would be one of the women holding your wrists down while her husband raped you so she could maintain her comfortable life, guaranteed.
THANK YOU, once again for your piercing TRUTH. OPPRESSION DOES NOT ERASE COMPLICITY. I know this in the marrow of my bones. I’ve known it since I was a preschooler—it has been my experience to “feel sorry or bad or excuse” the complicit because they seemed to have no choice. But they DID have a choice. Realizing the truth of this harsh reality is helping me to recognize the root of my trauma bonding. Those bonds are breaking—In my bare hands—crushed like tin foil.
A-frickin-men! Whenever I respond to wht friends that versions of this dystopia fiction were reality for many Black women I get the wht woman version of "all lives matter" -- that "at some point in history, all women have been oppressed and had their bodies controlled by men".
Spot on. The majority of white women keep the idea of “white supremacy” and the white patriarchy going on and on and on. Where do they think all these terrible white men come from? Their wombs and their upbringing. They are complicit in it all. I don’t need to watch that show to understand that - we’ve been living it IRL for hundreds of years.
What a wonderful analysis of the critique white women use to absolve themselves of their own complicity in a white patriarchal system. The many times white women have thrown black women under the bus to stay in proximity to white male power is to numerous to count. That would include this past presidential election where they once again had the ability to chose humanity and their womanhood and instead went with the current power structure.
Another good read. We all have choices in life. Fear of consequences is not an excuse to just go along with the way things are. Especially when they way things are is morally bankrupt.
I don’t even think we’re supposed to read the wives as victims in the way that commenter is saying, anyway. I always thought the point is that they consciously approximated themselves to patriarchy (and white supremacy, though the book and show don’t do enough to touch on that specifically) for power and it turned on them, as it does.
I guess she missed the part where Serena Joy exploited and terrorized handmaids. She was a co architect in sanctioned rape of handmaids but became the convenient “victim” when her pinky was surgically removed. Part of the tension was the artificial sympathy this was supposed to engender in the face of the atrocities others
White women voting for Trump in a nutshell
You got that right.
“They are active architects of the system.” Yep. This is Serena through and through. Are they really gonna tell a woman, “Look, I know I held your wrists down while my husband raped you, but I was oppressed too.” 🙄 Gtfoh.
The show makes sure to show how complicit Serena is over and over again. She IS the architect. Even while she is being victimized by it over and over again, she keeps choosing to defend and justify it, thinking she can reform it’s cruelty just enough to not only maintain her position of authority, but to gain more.
And, in later seasons, it also shows how June is complicit by trusting certain men in the machine who she should not have trusted… even though they displayed they could be trusted, they’ll always choose their power & position first, too.
Exactly right. I have read that book many times, taught with that book, and each and every time, I arrive at the same conclusion: they were complicit first and foremost.
Similar to how women in Muslim culture ensure their daughters get genital mutilation and gets married off at a young age to a cousin, uncle etc, except that actually happens and is not a work of fiction
I’ve read the book, haven’t watched the show. It’s very clear in Atwood’s story that Serena Joy and the other wives are complicit. They aren’t happy with the situation but they are actively supporting it because that’s what they know how to do. As a white woman I’ve seen this dynamic my whole effing life. I’ve stopped spending time in white cishet women’s groups because as a queer neurodivergent woman I can’t deal with the culture of cisheteropatriarchal complicity and the silencing of WOC and anyone else who doesn’t fit the skinny white blown out sorority Barbie ideal. It’s the 900# purple gorilla 🦍 the room that they all pretend not to see and it breaks my brain 🧠
Yes! This exactly. I don't get why women throw away their power when we'd be far more powerful as a whole. Buying into white patriarchy is such a foolish move.
I read the book. It won’t change your interpretation of the story because you’re absolutely correct in your assertion. I was frustrated to no end that the women just complied… like, what if they’d resisted? You gonna kill them all? Then what? Who’s doing the shopping, the cooking, the cleaning, who’s keeping the population going without women to have babies? The wives were very much complicit in what transpired, and any woman saying otherwise would be one of the women holding your wrists down while her husband raped you so she could maintain her comfortable life, guaranteed.
THANK YOU, once again for your piercing TRUTH. OPPRESSION DOES NOT ERASE COMPLICITY. I know this in the marrow of my bones. I’ve known it since I was a preschooler—it has been my experience to “feel sorry or bad or excuse” the complicit because they seemed to have no choice. But they DID have a choice. Realizing the truth of this harsh reality is helping me to recognize the root of my trauma bonding. Those bonds are breaking—In my bare hands—crushed like tin foil.
A-frickin-men! Whenever I respond to wht friends that versions of this dystopia fiction were reality for many Black women I get the wht woman version of "all lives matter" -- that "at some point in history, all women have been oppressed and had their bodies controlled by men".
"...let’s talk about what survival looks like for (white women): maintaining power, control, and privilege by throwing other women to the wolves."
Truth bomb.
Let me sit with the shrapnel in my eye.
Yup.
Spot on. The majority of white women keep the idea of “white supremacy” and the white patriarchy going on and on and on. Where do they think all these terrible white men come from? Their wombs and their upbringing. They are complicit in it all. I don’t need to watch that show to understand that - we’ve been living it IRL for hundreds of years.
What a wonderful analysis of the critique white women use to absolve themselves of their own complicity in a white patriarchal system. The many times white women have thrown black women under the bus to stay in proximity to white male power is to numerous to count. That would include this past presidential election where they once again had the ability to chose humanity and their womanhood and instead went with the current power structure.
This exactly! SMH……always protecting the white hierarchy.
Another good read. We all have choices in life. Fear of consequences is not an excuse to just go along with the way things are. Especially when they way things are is morally bankrupt.
The Marthas and Serena Joys in the book and show are most definitely "middle managers'. I think that's the best description I've heard.
I don’t even think we’re supposed to read the wives as victims in the way that commenter is saying, anyway. I always thought the point is that they consciously approximated themselves to patriarchy (and white supremacy, though the book and show don’t do enough to touch on that specifically) for power and it turned on them, as it does.
I guess she missed the part where Serena Joy exploited and terrorized handmaids. She was a co architect in sanctioned rape of handmaids but became the convenient “victim” when her pinky was surgically removed. Part of the tension was the artificial sympathy this was supposed to engender in the face of the atrocities others
faced.