The Handmaid's Tale- Margaret Atwood
This is one book I will not rate consciously. If I rate it five stars, it can be interpreted as I loved the book. Which I didn't. I hated the book. I feared the book. I feared the story. It made me afraid. It sprang innumerable bouts of anxiety. It triggered my depression. I was advised and with all the good intents, to stop reading the book. I couldn't do that.
Somehow, the thought of stopping the book midway made me feel guilty. I know, I know... But, it did. I have no justification for it. I can not help the way I feel.
Having said that, I apologise to all the women out there. I am not qualified to comment or write anything on this book. Simply, being a man disqualifies me from writing a single line about the book. Just one word from my side... Let this tale serve as a caution. Not only about the Gileadean Society's treatment of women- but much later on, during the epilogue. It is clear the world doesn't learn any lesson from the era. They are still pretty much the same. They are still carrying down the same shit as we are.
The blase nature in which the Pieixoto remarks “we must be cautious about passing moral judgment upon the Gileadean. Surely we have learned by now that such judgments are of necessity culture-specific.” Dr Pieixoto, as a male scholar, is viewing these historical events from the distant perspective of privilege, and as a result, like many real-life scholars, he is unwilling to condemn something that would never have affected him personally, writing off the oppression of an entire gender as a matter of cultural misunderstanding.
Do not ever do that.
Oppression in any form is just that... Oppression. Stand up. Call it out. Please.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
Somehow, the thought of stopping the book midway made me feel guilty. I know, I know... But, it did. I have no justification for it. I can not help the way I feel.
Having said that, I apologise to all the women out there. I am not qualified to comment or write anything on this book. Simply, being a man disqualifies me from writing a single line about the book. Just one word from my side... Let this tale serve as a caution. Not only about the Gileadean Society's treatment of women- but much later on, during the epilogue. It is clear the world doesn't learn any lesson from the era. They are still pretty much the same. They are still carrying down the same shit as we are.
The blase nature in which the Pieixoto remarks “we must be cautious about passing moral judgment upon the Gileadean. Surely we have learned by now that such judgments are of necessity culture-specific.” Dr Pieixoto, as a male scholar, is viewing these historical events from the distant perspective of privilege, and as a result, like many real-life scholars, he is unwilling to condemn something that would never have affected him personally, writing off the oppression of an entire gender as a matter of cultural misunderstanding.
Do not ever do that.
Oppression in any form is just that... Oppression. Stand up. Call it out. Please.
Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.
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