# 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:** 7
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/121 "2017-04-29T01:13:45Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > I believe that personal insults belong in the pit. If you’d like to take me there, I have some comments on you. > > I would point out that in Indiana, women seeking an abortion are encouraged by the state to talk to a clergy member before doing so. Why on earth is the government of Indiana advocating that women talk to a clergy member? > > There will never be a president in my lifetime who does not profess to be a Christian and politicians regularly use their Christian faith as an excuse to oppose all kinds of things from abortion, to gay marriage, to gay couples being allowed to adopt. > > Calling me names doesn’t change those fact. I tried Googling but can’t find any reference to what you’re talking about in Indiana. And most American presidents have professed to be Christians, and the things you mention were illegal and/or unheard of for most of our history. Does that mean we’ve always been a theocracy? If traditional gender roles, or the absence of gay marriage, or whatever, makes a nation a theocracy, then the vast majority of all the nations that have ever existed on earth have been theocracies until contemporary times. That’s such a vague definition of “theocracy” as to be meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![madmonk28](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madmonk28/32/20811_2.png) [@madmonk28](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madmonk28)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/122 "2017-04-29T01:22:27Z")
> [@Arcite](#): > > I tried Googling but can’t find any reference to what you’re talking about in Indiana. And most American presidents have professed to be Christians, and the things you mention were illegal and/or unheard of for most of our history. Does that mean we’ve always been a theocracy? If traditional gender roles, or the absence of gay marriage, or whatever, makes a nation a theocracy, then the vast majority of all the nations that have ever existed on earth have been theocracies until contemporary times. That’s such a vague definition of “theocracy” as to be meaningless. Sure you did, it was in the link I provided but here it is again: [A State-by-State List of the Lies Abortion Doctors Are Forced to Tell Women](https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/a-state-by-state-list-of-the-lies-abortion-doctors-are-forced-to-tell-women) Like I said, take me to the pit and I’ll tell you what I really think if you. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/123 "2017-04-29T01:34:53Z")
I’m just glad in Atwood’s book, Canada remains a clear bastion of secular freedom. ---
**Author:** ![Arcite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/67e7ee/32.png) [@Arcite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arcite)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/124 "2017-04-29T02:07:28Z")
> [@madmonk28](#): > > Sure you did, it was in the link I provided but here it is again: [https://broadly.vice.com/en\_us/article/a-state-by-state-list-of-the-lies-abortion-doctors-are-forced-to-tell-women](https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/a-state-by-state-list-of-the-lies-abortion-doctors-are-forced-to-tell-women) > > Like I said, take me to the pit and I’ll tell you what I really think if you. I had looked at the Indiana section of that site, which lists 4 bullet points, none of which mention clergy. So I did a Ctrl-F on “clergy”. It’s under Idaho, and states “Recommends ‘talking with a member of the clergy’ before having an abortion.” They link to the booklet, in which the actual text reads “You may also benefit from talking to a trusted friend, family member, clergy, or counselor about the important decision you are facing.” I realize you consider that horrific, but how is that evidence that the United States of America has [“a form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, the God’s or deity’s laws being interpreted by the ecclesiastical authorities?”](http://www.dictionary.com/browse/theocracy?s=t) ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/125 "2017-04-29T02:17:54Z")
> [@Tamerlane](#): > > Wait - what? Link? I think [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=530494) is the thread where it was most discussed. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/126 "2017-04-29T02:38:29Z")
> [@Karen\_Lingel](#): > > Ah, finally, this one is available at my local library and I have ordered it. I’ll let you know how plausible I think it is. My goddess! You have stepped down from SDSAB Olympus to honor us! I thought the book was about a Mormon takeover. Probably shoulda read it. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/127 "2017-04-29T02:54:14Z")
For those that are not fans of Atwood’s book I offer you grumpy Australian writer Helen Razer’s [You Didn’t Need to be a ‘Clairvoyant’ Literary Star to Have Seen Trump Coming](https://dailyreview.com.au/dont-need-clairvoyant-literary-star-predicted-age-trump/57695/) > [@](#): > > When the trailer was released last week for the forthcoming MGM-Hulu TV version of this sack of old balls, many again found its dystopian prophecies both thrilling and “deeply, deeply unsettling”. I do not understand how a work that predicts the future nature of the hegemon with about as much forethought and accuracy as a magic 8 ball is deeply, deeply unsettling. I guess it’s a little unsettling that Elisabeth Moss, a Scientologist, plays the role of a woman whose life is governed by a tiny cult with terrible views on the gendered division of labour. But, as for all the “this could really happen here!” claptrap. We can only suppose that the wide availability of medical-grade doobies to US critics has narrowed the faculty for hard analysis even as it has deepened soft-headed paranoia. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/128 "2017-04-29T04:24:05Z")
Margaret Atwood grew up in Quebec, and when she reached adulthood (1960), married women in Quebec still had no legal power to sign a document. So methinks she knows something of which she speaks. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/129 "2017-04-29T05:37:14Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Margaret Atwood grew up in Quebec, and when she reached adulthood (1960), married women in Quebec still had no legal power to sign a document. So methinks she knows something of which she speaks. My mom (who also grew up in Quebec as, subsequently, did I) has also told me about crap like that - her not being able to arrange financing and such without the approval of her husband, my father. It frankly pisses me off. Atwood, though, bounced back and forth between Quebec and Ontario in her childhood, probably spending more formative time in the latter. She taught for a time at a Montreal university that eventually became Concordia, my own alma mater. Go Stingers. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/130 "2017-04-29T05:49:03Z")
To answer the OP - 200 years ago, plausible, yes. Today or in the future? Absolutely not. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/131 "2017-04-29T07:45:25Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > I think [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=530494) is the thread where it was most discussed. Huh. Thanks. I guess I am less invested in the human race than some. If people didn’t feel like breeding, I’m pretty sure I’d accept our extinction with a shrug. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/132 "2017-04-29T09:55:27Z")
> [@Asuka](#): > > I mean if you look at some of the craziest rhetoric coming from the Anti-Trump camp (“White Men shouldn’t have the right to Vote” Errm, that one had zip to do with Trump. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/133 "2017-04-29T12:38:50Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > To answer the OP - 200 years ago, plausible, yes. Today or in the future? Absolutely not. The future is not always spot on the target you envision. The USA, in my lifetime, abolished capital punishment and decriminalized abortion, and then reneged and took them back again. There are a number of countries that have shaken off the chains of tyranny, and then allowed them to return. Russia is leaning that way, Belarus even more strongly, and Uzbekistan substantially. Philipinos, who at home are more or less democratic, are perfectly happy to go abroad to authoritarian states like Brunei and Qatar, where they trade liberty for prosperity. Iranians and others have no interest in having western democracy imposed on them, to replace their Sharia. The Germans in the 1930s, reeling after a decade of economic disaster, welcomed a strong central government that promised order. In short, it is not very hard to persuade people to give up social progress and follow any path that makes life decisions easier for them. Human rights is something that takes work to maintain, and people don’t always see it as worth the effort. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/134 "2017-04-29T12:43:04Z")
Two episodes in, I can’t say I’m loving it. It seems heavy-handed— like, “osmium oven mitts” heavy— and as a faithful member of the choir, I fear that the sermon being screamed into my ears will sound (at best) like faint clicks and buzzes to its intended audience. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/135 "2017-04-29T12:44:21Z")
You youngsters went remember these, and you might not believe them. [10 Things That American Women Could Not Do Before the 1970s](http://msmagazine.com/blog/2013/05/28/10-things-that-american-women-could-not-do-before-the-1970s/) > [@](#): > > 1. Keep her job if she was pregnant. > > 2. Report cases of sexual harassment in the workplace. > > 3. Be acknowledged in the Boston Marathon. > > 4. Get a credit card. > > 5. Refuse to have sex with her husband. > > 6. Compete as a boxer in the Olympics. > > 7. Get a divorce with some degree of ease. > > 8. Celebrate International Women’s Day. > > 9. Have a legal abortion in most states. > > 10. Read Ms. Magazine! Granted, not all of these are earth-shaking (no need to point that out), but did you know that a woman could not get credit in get own name? That there was no “no-fault” divorce-- someone had to be blamed. And of course, abortion was illegal. This was all in very recent memory. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/136 "2017-04-29T14:01:28Z")
I find it plausible _enough_. I mean, I thoroughly enjoy all kinds of crazy conceits. I love Aliens IV even though I find it really hard to believe that a clone of Ripley would have her memories. It’s kind of hard to enjoy any movie nowadays if you can’t suspend your disbelief. I think the only thing that makes A Handmaid’s Tale hard to swallow is the speed at which society transforms. But then again, the story is told from Offred’s perspective primarily. Maybe she gets some things wrong in her retelling. Like, maybe the story is set in one of the few places that have been successful conquered, and almost everywhere else people are still resisting the government. She wouldn’t know the truth given how closed off she is from information. I have no doubt in my mind that most people will go along with any program. It is the special person who will fight when there is a gun pointed at them. And it won’t take that long for some people to go from “I’m doing this just to survive” to “This is okay now that I’ve gotten used to it” all the way to “I will defend this system since I believe it is better than the alternatives.” I think people will gladly condemn others to slavery as long as they aren’t one of the enslaved, and I think people will go along with enslavement if the alternative is death. And people will do kinds of brutal things if they believe that the Eye that is always watching them wants them to do those things. People will do brutal things when they are in a system that encourages those things (like when Offred channels all her pent-up rage on killing that rapist). The story is about these universal truths. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/137 "2017-04-29T14:21:12Z")
> [@monstro](#): > > … > > I think the only thing that makes A Handmaid’s Tale hard to swallow is the speed at which society transforms. … We’re not actually told what period of time elapses between June/Offred being captured and the full-blown red-dress-bonnet-institutionalized thing being in place. Maybe the book says, but it’s been ages since I read it. When she’s running away, her little girl seems to be about four or five. Maybe younger-- a toddler-- because Offred does try to carry her. Later Ofglen asks her about her child, and Offred says she’d be eight. So that’s a period of three to five years. How much time elapsed between \*Kristallnacht \*and the first ovens? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/138 "2017-04-29T14:56:36Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > How much time elapsed between \*Kristallnacht \*and the first ovens? Three years. 1938 for \*Kristallnacht \*and 1941 for the use of gas chambers/cremation in Nazi “work” camps. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/139 "2017-04-29T15:33:19Z")
To expand on that a little, let’s say a huge disaster, a period of chaos, stability aggravated by a follow-up collapse, a radical group promising a return to prosperity, that group seizing permanent power and eventually engaging in systematic slaughter and repression… Germany from the end of WW1 (1918), the post war hyperinflation (1923), into the crash and depression (1929-), the rise of the National Socialists (1933) to Auschwitz (1943). So less than thirty years, certainly, and I could picture it in as few as ten. I don’t see Trump as an oppressive leader, though. I see him as a potential stooge of oppressive leaders. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2017, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357/140 "2017-04-29T16:07:18Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > How much time elapsed between \*Kristallnacht \*and the first ovens? > [@Broomstick](#): > > Three years. 1938 for \*Kristallnacht \*and 1941 for the use of gas chambers/cremation in Nazi “work” camps. Except Germany was already 4 years into a dictatorship when Kristallnacht occurred. But more importantly, the US has a 250 year history of democracy (often flawed, but still a democracy) that a country like Germany never had. Analogy fail. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anybody-actually-find-a-handmaids-tale-remotely-plausible/785357.md?page=8)