The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood | Book Review

[FullyBookedMelissa]

It's been close to 20 years since I read The Handmaid's Tale and it has stuck with me all this time. I read it at the exact right time, when I was just naive enough for it to really hit me. Something I think about is the wives role in this and their plight. Serena Joy is a villain and a victim. The wives uphold this system that also keeps them in lower positions in society, but masquerade as being powerful or important. It mirrors the real world... Im specifically thinking about how white women will vote for patriarchal parties/candidates; even though those parties keep those same women oppressed, it gives the women some privilege in their whiteness. The wives embody that for me. They are also oppressed but they are in part a vehicle for their own oppression and they are all too happy to uphold that system as long as there are women more oppressed than them.