# Does Anybody Actually Find "A Handmaid's Tale" Remotely Plausible? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 27, 2017, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357 "2017-04-27T13:09:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 12
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [May 11, 2017, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/221 "2017-05-11T22:43:34Z")
At the risk of excessive snarkiness, you don’t get satire, do you? ---
**Author:** ![Karen\_Lingel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karen_lingel/32/18649_2.png) [@Karen\_Lingel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Karen_Lingel)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/222 "2017-05-12T00:14:12Z")
> [@DZedNConfused](#): > > At the risk of excessive snarkiness, you don’t get satire, do you? Apparently, neither do you. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DZedNConfused](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dzednconfused/32/15991_2.png) [@DZedNConfused](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DZedNConfused)\ **Post date:** [May 12, 2017, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/223 "2017-05-12T15:58:52Z")
> [@Karen\_Lingel](#): > > Apparently, neither do you. 😉 Oh Gotcha, the “I was being sarcastic” defense…didn’t realize I was on Facebook here. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2017, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/224 "2017-05-13T22:54:58Z")
As a sci-fi reader of 67 years, my feeling when I read it 30 years ago is that it was terrible science-fiction. Not sci-fi? Okay, terrible dystopianism. Could a wave of religiosity sweep the US? Of course, it had happened before and might happen again. But the kinky sex was, for me, entirely beyond the pale. Just too implausible to be interesting. Actually, nearly all sci-fi is implausible, just more interestingly implausible. FTL drives impossible. Interstellar empires, impossible. But if there were, how would people who lived in them respond. It is on that level that I couldn’t abide the book. I haven’t seen the movie and don’t intend to. ---
**Author:** ![Ndrose\_aol.com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/77aa72/32.png) [@Ndrose\_aol.com](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ndrose_aol.com)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/225 "2017-05-27T13:51:25Z")
> [@ZPG\_Zealot](#): > > I find it frighteningly possible as I observe the current battle for safe abortion in the United States and the spread of infant worship. What is “infant worship”? ---
**Author:** ![Ndrose\_aol.com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/77aa72/32.png) [@Ndrose\_aol.com](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ndrose_aol.com)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/226 "2017-05-27T13:58:44Z")
There just so many easier and cheaper ways to have more babies. 1) just pay women to do it…sadly, many women would do it for less than those camps cost. 2) Artificial insemination…it’s easy for horses, would work for humans even 30 years ago. In what weird religious sect would it make sense for the husband to have sex with a woman while his wife is watching? It’s just too bizarre. And the numbers don’t make sense…not one town in America was able to protect their wives and daughters? My right wing, conservative dad is not letting anyone take his granddaughters…it’s not even like the nazis who picked on one smaller part of society. I watch the show and go…huh? > [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > As a sci-fi reader of 67 years, my feeling when I read it 30 years ago is that it was terrible science-fiction. Not sci-fi? Okay, terrible dystopianism. Could a wave of religiosity sweep the US? Of course, it had happened before and might happen again. But the kinky sex was, for me, entirely beyond the pale. Just too implausible to be interesting. > > Actually, nearly all sci-fi is implausible, just more interestingly implausible. FTL drives impossible. Interstellar empires, impossible. But if there were, how would people who lived in them respond. It is on that level that I couldn’t abide the book. I haven’t seen the movie and don’t intend to. ---
**Author:** ![Ndrose\_aol.com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/77aa72/32.png) [@Ndrose\_aol.com](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ndrose_aol.com)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/227 "2017-05-27T14:03:28Z")
It is already happening to a small extent. Richer, higher educated and less religious folks don’t have as many babies. My sister is the exception, grad school, rich and 8 babies. In Europe birth rates and dropping except for immigrants. Society doesn’t reward large families or make it financially easier and society mocks them. > [@RickJay](#): > > I trhink it’s critical to note that the events of the book/series don’t just spontaneously happen because of Der Trihs’s certainly the Republicans will just try to do it. They happen because suddenly there aren’t any babies anymore, or damn few. > > How society would react to a sudden drop in fertility rates to “humans will become extict” levels is difficult to say, because one thing you CAN say is that it would result in sociological psychosis. Things absolutely would not just proceed as normal. The possibility of a religious zealotry taking over out of existential panic is quite plausible. ---
**Author:** ![Ndrose\_aol.com](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/77aa72/32.png) [@Ndrose\_aol.com](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ndrose_aol.com)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/228 "2017-05-27T14:12:47Z")
I’ve always appreciated Animal Farm and it teaches lessons about paying attention before things slip away. The Hamdmaid Tale besides the many holes in logic, once again demonstrates how liberals don’t understand true Christians. We don’t approve of raping women or hanging people because they sin. I’m Catholic so we are big on confession. We also like sex in marriage and encourage it. It’s just ridiculous. Neither the Nazis or Soviets promoted a religion… they wanted to abolish God * * * > [@madmonk28](#): > > I must have missed the part where the farm animals started talking in the Soviet Union which is embarrassing what with having a degree in Russian studies and all. It’s almost as if both Orwell and Atwood used allegory to make a political point. I think the fact that so many need to lash out at Atwood is because her writing touched a nerve and conservative America must put her in her place. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/229 "2017-05-27T19:00:56Z")
> [@Ndrose\_aol.com](#): > > Neither the Nazis or Soviets promoted a religion… they wanted to abolish God The Soviets, yes. The Nazis, [not so much.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Evangelical_Church) Also, your comment about “liberals not understanding true Christians” needs some unpacking, because you’re making two major assumptions, there. The first is the idea that the Sons of Jacob are meant to be “true” Christians in the show. They’re a Christian terrorist group that’s had unprecedented success, and which is shown explicitly targeting other Christians who don’t agree with their ultra-fundamentalist theology. They’re basically a Christian ISIS. The other assumption is that liberals aren’t Christian. You might want to take a look at the chart in [this cite](http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/23/u-s-religious-groups-and-their-political-leanings/) which breaks down political leanings by religion. The “Catholic” entry should be particularly interesting to you. As for the show in general, _The Handmaid’s Tale_ is part of a common speculative fiction trope, “What if it happened here?” _War of the Worlds_ imagined what it would be like if an advanced society showed up in England, and started colonizing it the way the British were colonizing the rest of the world. _The Man in the High Castle_ looked at what happened in Europe, when the Nazis took over a country, and imagined what it would be like if it was the US getting conquered. And _Handmaid_ looked at the Iranian revolution, where people’s own religion and culture suddenly turned toxic on them, and began savagely repressing them based on a minority interpretation of a religious text. None of these a realistic scenarios: a Sons of Jacob couldn’t have that sort of success in contemporary America. Japan and Germany could never have conquered mainland America. There’s no such thing as Martians. But all these stories draw on the same basic idea: “what if this bad thing happening to people far away was actually happening to you, right where you live?” ---
**Author:** ![E-DUB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/e-dub/32/403_2.png) [@E-DUB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-DUB)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/230 "2017-05-27T21:41:10Z")
I knew someone once who wrote a paper comparing the plot of “Animal Farm” to what were then called the “Black Muslims”. (This was before the term “Nation of Islam” was in wide usage and when folks we currently call Muslims were called Moslems). Elijah Muhammad as Napoleon, Malcolm X as Snowball. This was ages ago so I don’t recall any other details. ---
**Author:** ![Lucky\_Mike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Lucky\_Mike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucky_Mike)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/231 "2017-05-27T22:22:55Z")
We have to remember, Atwood’s tale is set in a very specific environment: 1. Religious fervor 2. Massive decreases in fertility 3. Economic hardship and limited resources 4. Geo-political (armed) conflict between major powers If people experienced this, all bets are off. It is both a salient point about political and social possibilities, and a “worst case scenario” situation. In some ways, you must examine all of her works to understand the perspective she is writing from. But, if your general question is: Do I think that after catastrophic human suffering, environmental and biological changes, global conflict, and ideological strife a totalitarian regime could emerge based on a religious ideology? Then the answer is yes. It is a human historical fact in many ways and has been explored in many other ways. For a critical thinking challenge, imagine Handmaid’s Tale being set 30 years after “Children of Men”. For example, the very nature of the abortion debate is fundamentally rooted in the fact we have no issues with having babies. That is an issue she explores very deeply in the Handmaid’s tale. What happens when a resource that is currently unlimited, and that is the most important factor in the continuation of human civilization, becomes finite and limited. Finally, the human need for answers (i.e. spirituality) is also a major part of this. In times of strife and uncertainty, people tend to need something to guide them. In a world where public institutions are powerful, stable, and provide most of what we need, secularism will rise. In the absence of those stable institutions all bets are off as to what humanity will seek out to find order. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/232 "2017-05-28T05:48:49Z")
> [@Ndrose\_aol.com](#): > > There just so many easier and cheaper ways to have more babies. 1) just pay women to do it…sadly, many women would do it for less than those camps cost. > 2) Artificial insemination…it’s easy for horses, would work for humans even 30 years ago. In what weird religious sect would it make sense for the husband to have sex with a woman while his wife is watching? It’s just too bizarre. > > And the numbers don’t make sense…not one town in America was able to protect their wives and daughters? My right wing, conservative dad is not letting anyone take his granddaughters…it’s not even like the nazis who picked on one smaller part of society. I don’t share your religious belief (I’m an atheist), but I think these are pretty fair points. > [@Miller](#): > > They’re basically a Christian ISIS. I would say there’s a lot more direct textual support for ISIS in the Quran than there is for the Handmaid stuff in the Bible. Which is not to say you couldn’t make a horrible, extreme dystopia based on the Bible. You could totally have one where [women are stoned to death at the town gate](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%2022:13-21) if they weren’t able to prove their virginity on their wedding night, and [“rebellious drunkard” sons are also stoned to death](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+21:18-21) at the same spot. Where soldiers were given free rein to [take pretty young women home as concubines](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy+21:10-19) in some places, although in others they would be expected to commit total genocide “[leaving alive nothing that breathes](http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/20-16.htm)”. It just wouldn’t have a lot of the features in \*this \*novel. > [@Miller](#): > > The other assumption is that liberals aren’t Christian. Yes, I have three good friends who are not only Christian and very liberal, they are weekly churchgoers and can quote Scripture with the best of them (though I do think that combination is relatively rare). I do feel they have to ignore or twist up in knots explaining some of the rough stuff in the Bible, but it’s also true that Christian conservatives and especially televangelists have to pretend the admonitions about what \*not \*to do in the Sermon on the Mount aren’t essentially [talking about people just like them](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+6&version=ISV), or come up with a tortured explanation for the story of the [early communist church](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+4:32-35), where failing to share all possessions carried a [magical death sentence](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+5&version=ISV) (and no, it wasn’t just for lying). > [@Miller](#): > > As for the show in general, _The Handmaid’s Tale_ is part of a common speculative fiction trope, “What if it happened here?” _War of the Worlds_ imagined what it would be like if an advanced society showed up in England, and started colonizing it the way the British were colonizing the rest of the world. _The Man in the High Castle_ looked at what happened in Europe, when the Nazis took over a country, and imagined what it would be like if it was the US getting conquered. And _Handmaid_ looked at the Iranian revolution, where people’s own religion and culture suddenly turned toxic on them, and began savagely repressing them based on a minority interpretation of a religious text. > > None of these a realistic scenarios: a Sons of Jacob couldn’t have that sort of success in contemporary America. Japan and Germany could never have conquered mainland America. There’s no such thing as Martians. But all these stories draw on the same basic idea: “what if this bad thing happening to people far away was actually happening to you, right where you live?” These are really great points (although I’d quibble with calling Iranian religious repression a “minority interpretation”: my impression is that it was actually a sullen lower class majority that was very conservative in their religiosity, and had long resented what they saw as the libertine values of the Shah-era elites). But it also means that the women writing think pieces about how we’re on the edge of Gilead here in the U.S. today should recognize that it’s more like “thank god I don’t live in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan”. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/233 "2017-05-28T11:50:05Z")
> [@Ndrose\_aol.com](#): > > I’ve always appreciated Animal Farm … > > * * * Just a request … could you put your response to a quote from someone else after the quote instead of before it? It’s pretty confusing the other way. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/234 "2017-05-28T13:42:37Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Just a request … could you put your response to a quote from someone else after the quote instead of before it? It’s pretty confusing the other way. Confusing? I know it’s not the convention here, but don’t we all read emails every day that are formatted this way? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2017, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/235 "2017-05-28T17:51:55Z")
That’s not how we engage in discussions here. E-mail is a completely different context. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2017, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/236 "2017-05-30T14:51:43Z")
> [@Ndrose\_aol.com](#): > > What is “infant worship”? The prioritizing of infant life above that of other humans. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/237 "2017-07-31T08:55:10Z")
Apologies for coming in late but I’ve only just finished the series - it’s now available in Australia via SBS. Overall I thought it was well done, but I’m really struggling with the idea that USA went from “The world we live in now” to “Mormon North Korea” pretty much overnight. The novel makes it clear things have been turning to shit for ages before The Sons of Jacob finally manage their takeover; the TV show makes it seem like everything’s (more or less) fine then suddenly these random dudes with AR-15s are bossing everyone around and firing all the women and no-one thinks to properly ask “Who the fuck are you? Where’s the police? Where’s the actual army?” The USA is huge. I get the Gileadans trying to control the US/Canada border (I don’t believe even the modern US can successfully do that) but it just seems to be that the show doesn’t really explain how people don’t just leg it somewhere else. The show seems to imply Gilead is only a smallish part of the former US (New England, IIRC) and does mention there’s only two states left in the Union - Alaska and one other (Hawaii?), with Chicago a contested zone and the rest of the country run by warlords or (presumably) other states. If June was recalling her childhood as a little girl, or was a _lot_ older, it might work - but I find the fact all the backstory seems to have happened maybe three years ago at most to be quite implausible. Also, there would be a fuckload of people in the US - of both genders - who would want to fight the Sons of Jacob, or help people flee them en masse; it really seems like everyone who mattered was either on board or didn’t care and I find that quite hard to believe in the context of the show too. ---
**Author:** ![Dave\_Hartwick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@Dave\_Hartwick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dave_Hartwick)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/238 "2017-07-31T13:35:41Z")
Yep, just finished the series, too. First show I ever watched entirely on a phone. It’s been years since I read the book, so my comments are restricted to the show. SPOILERS. Mild ones, I think. I didn’t find the premise implausible. They made it clear, early on, that the species was facing extinction. It’s underlined by the way characters act toward children, especially one scene where a foreign government was willing to make a deal with the a pariah nation-- basicly sex trafficking. Humans are desperate in this world. They’re going to die out if they don’t do something. There were scenes that didn’t ring true, some already mentioned. The takeover as shown, following June losing her job, was a bit too easy. The new government has, so far as I can tell, no relation to the old government. Waterford was, what, a rabble rouser? Gilead’s head of intel worked in an employment office. The goons just show up one day with a minimum of foreshadowing, although, yes, some detail goes into their methods behind the scenes. Seemed like all the normal people were completely blindsided-- June and Moira get a dirty look once. A clerk calls them sluts. Then they lose their jobs, their rights, and the fundies are ruling the streets with riot police and cannons. Nobody shoots back? Where were the civil authorities? If they were in on it, why not use their symbols of power and a pretense of continuity? Really, though, the most implausible thing was the omission of any mention of cloning. A handwave would’ve been appreciated. “You know that won’t work-- every attempt at human cloning phlebottumizes the flux capacitors and we’re fresh out of unobtanium.” I should leave the dialogue to people who can write it. Still, would’ve helped, if done with a bit of finesse. Something that did help plausibility was ditching the white supremacist aspect of the revolution from the book. The subjugation of women makes a sort of cruel sense as barely acceptable survival strategy as it’s played. Being picky about your breeding stock and manpower would be a counter productive luxury. Some of the complaints I’m seeing here-- Americans are just _too darn special and free_ to ever fall for this sort of weird nonsense-- falters in the face of an existential threat. Actually, the drastic nature of the threat is cheating. Anything that increases the chance of survival can make sense in the face of extinction. ---
**Author:** ![Snarky\_Kong](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a183cd/32.png) [@Snarky\_Kong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snarky_Kong)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/239 "2017-07-31T14:28:41Z")
> [@Dave\_Hartwick](#): > > Really, though, the most implausible thing was the omission of any mention of cloning. A handwave would’ve been appreciated. “You know that won’t work-- every attempt at human cloning phlebottumizes the flux capacitors and we’re fresh out of unobtanium.” If the infertile women can’t carry a child, cloning wouldn’t help anything. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2017, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/240 "2017-07-31T15:48:02Z")
If you’d told the average German in the strasse in 1930 what would happen to Germany in the 1940s, I’m sure most of them would have thought it wildly implausible too. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357.md?page=11) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357.md?page=13)