The Handmaid's Tale Book

02/13/21
Today 43 Republicans, traitors to their country, worried about losing their jobs decided against growing a pair. Portman in Ohio who isn't running for re-election is the portrait of cowardice. He could have voted guilty, but he didn't. Moscow Mitch voted 'not guilty' then immediately turned around to make a speech about how guilty Donald is for inciting the insurrection! You can't have it both ways, Mitch! Why did he vote 'not guilty?'
Because of process... one can't hold a trial for a president for his crimes after he's out of office for crimes he committed while in office (yet, a president can't be held responsible for his crimes whilst in office)... But, between January 6th and the 20th, Mitch shut down the senate and refused to call the senate back to hold the trail, when according to him, would have been the appropriate time to hold the trial. All of which is entirely bullshit. Donald was impeached while he was still in office so it was entirely appropriate (required, actually) to put him on trial after he left office. My head hurts.

Someone please stuff lettuce in Mitch's mouth and turn him on his shell.

01/06/21

Sadly, it's time for an update.

In this book, Gilead took control of the United States government via a violent coup in which they kill all the members of congress at the capitol. Then martial law was enacted.

Carry on.
5/22/19

Looking back on my original review, it reads as quaint compared to the draconian state laws recently being passed, my state of Ohio being one of them. Make no mistake, this not about 'life' it's about controlling women. If you can't decide what happens to your own body you do not have freedom. This is about bodily autonomy.

Women have the RIGHT to legal and safe abortions with no qualifications. The fact that the narrative has gone to 'in cases of rape and incest' is troubling. Rape...incest...life of the mother....horrible birth defects....you're young, single and not ready....you have five kids and can't afford more, it doesn't matter!

This is a medical procedure and pregnancy is a risky condition, it can cause death. Every woman has the right to decide whether or not they want to take that risk. Period.

Men don't have anything that compares to this. No law is forcing them have vasectomies, or even denying them their bonner pills.

7/7/17 I'm just going to leave this here.... fuck Paul Ryan.... but not literally, ew.

Sleeveless women? My stars and garters!

03/31/17. So, this Russia thing.... Am I right?

2/5/17.....just another giant step towards making this book a reality, like they always dreamed of.

Original review written in 2o12:

WARNING: This review is being written after I worked a 13 hour day, with another one on the horizon tomorrow, and a glass of wine and while watching the Rachel Maddow show. Current events have put this book on the forefront of my mind, and damn it I got to get this out.

I have never written a review on The Handmaid's Tale because I love the book, and it is so hard to write about a book you love.

Ehh, what the hell.

OfFred was a normal everyday woman with a career, a name, a life like all women have come to expect and take for granted in this age. When the Religious Right came into power, they began to put into practice their insane beliefs which strip women of their identity, their rights, their body, their very name. Women are to be called Of(whatever asshat they belong to), instead of, say Beatrix. Reproduction is an issue because all the toxins in the environment have rendered many women infertile. But if you are fertile, woe to you, you get to be a baby factory against your will, get promised to some jerk you don't love or even like because someone deemed him important enough to breed. Oh, come on!

This book was written in 1986, FYI. I thought it was scary and sort of possible when I first read it, but farfetched. This could NEVER happen in the United States of America. Never would it be allowed to happen here, we are too educated.


So………


I turn on the news (in twothousandandfrikntwelve) and certain religious factions on the right are trying to defund Planned Parenthood, because they perform abortions which is only 3% of what they do (with NO federal $ going towards them). Mostly PP provides healthcare to women who wouldn't get it otherwise………..icky poor women.

Now it's birth control? Seriously? Birth control??????? Did I wake up in 1950? Am I stuck in a Atwood novel? 98% of Catholic women (technically I'm one of them) use/used birth control. Even they are asking WTF?

I'm not sure what these people are trying to do. There are more women than men and we vote……unless that's the next right on the chopping block.

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There have several updates to this review that I have removed to make room for the next. what follows is the most recent one.

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It's been nearly a week since the unimaginable happened and I had to let the shock wear off before I could put a coherent, non-rage filled update on this review. Not that I don't have rage, I have plenty to spare, but I think it's now at a level that is manageable enough for me not to just type out a string of obscenities. That being said…

Update 11/14/16: An unqualified, racist, xenophobic, sexist, pathological liar, psychopathic reality star was elected to be the 45th president of the United States and the leader of the free world.

FUCK!

The United States has officially shat the bed. Few foresaw it, but in hindsight, it was coming down the road for a very long time. The United (divided) States voted for Hillary Clinton on whole (popular vote) by over 2,000,000 votes and counting (millions are still out in California, for example), yet Donald Trump is our president elect (gag) due to an antiquated electoral college system (which I could explain, but I'm not because Google can do that better than I can.) Now, I'm all for ditching the electoral college, unless the electors decide to do what it was intended to do under this circumstance; to save us from ourselves. See, our founding fathers knew that we would fall for some con artist, demagogue at some point in the future, so they wisely created the electoral college, a group of actual human beings trusted upon to stop such a calamity. I implore the folks of current electoral college recognize this election as a collective loss of sanity of less than a quarter of the population of this nation, and on December 19th put their votes towards the popular vote winner, Hillary Clinton. I realize that this is unlikely, but one can dream.

How did this happen? There are many factors involved. Lots of opportunity for pointing fingers and fighting amongst ourselves, which I will admit to being a party to…..guilty. But, in my opinion, what it boils down to is these four things: Division, misinformation, apathy and fear of the 'other'.

Division: We are all in our own comfortable bubbles, digesting the information we are most comfortable with. For example, I never believed there was this much hate it this country because I didn't want to look at it; I knew it was there of course, but not at the level that it appears to be. Everyone wants to live where they feel they belong. Amongst those that are like minded and reaffirm your very rightness. Liberals don't want to live in Indiana (or Ohio….sigh) any more than a conservative want's to live in Washington state. We even do this in our social media as well (guilty again). This is what messed us up with the electoral college.

Misinformation: I am not going to tell you who's right or wrong here, I'll let this study speak for itself.

Apathy: Half…HALF… the country didn't vote. You guys suck.

Fear of the other: This country harbors more racism than I can comprehend. The white people in this country seemed a little angry about the black man in the white house and the white men were staunchly determined not to have a woman (white or not) follow him. I don't mean all white men, just too many of them (chill.) "The advantage for Trump among men is larger than the 7-point advantage Romney had in 2012 and much different than in 2008, when men preferred Obama over McCain by a single point."-PewResearchCenter. But then there are the white women, 53% went for Trump…..oh my sisters, I have no words.

Which brings me to the reason why this update is relevant to this review and to this book (for those who tell me that my opinion is unwarranted....again.) Is the United States a more racist country, or a more sexist country? America has spoken, at least the ones who cared to speak, and the answer is "a goodly amount of both", but in this election sexism won and women lost.