Margaret Atwood has a unusual new fan — a commenter on the MGTOW2 subreddit who thinks that The Handmaid’s Tale is (unbeknownst to even Atwood herself) not a dystopian vision of a patriarchal theocracy but rather a sort of Red Pill parable on “the folly of the liberated woman.”
“As I expected to find, there are red pills in it,” writes immortal_coherence. “It’s a good read so far.”
The main point of Atwood’s novel, as Mr. Coherence sees it, is that women fuck up when they’re given too much freedom, thus destroying society and quite possibly ushering in a patriarchal, theocratic government.
“The author does a really good job of showing the [real] folly of feminism without being blatant about,” Mr. Coherence writes.
Some people could probably read it and not see that she is calling out feminism. Heck, I’m not even sure the author is aware she is doing it.
Other commenters are not quite sure that Mr. Coherence is really grasping the point of the book.
“Are you sure you’re interpreting it correctly?” asks someone called Solo_and_Simple,
This is from the wikipedia entry: “The novel explores themes of subjugated women in a patriarchal society and the various means by which they resist and attempt to gain individuality and independence.”
Also, ” The Handmaid’s Tale is a feminist dystopian novel.. with the feminist utopian ideal which: “sees men or masculine systems as the major cause of social and political problems…”
Mr. Coherence is not swayed.
I’m far more black pilled than red. From my perspective the feminist agenda to “resist and gain individuality” in the novel is juvenile and lacks strong leadership and direction. Even in the book it only led to stricter control over women. There wasn’t a greater vision for them, on how society can benefit from their liberation.
If the liberation of women equals a better society, how does it happen? In the book they sought for more freedom before SHTF [Shit Hits The Fan]; the protagonist’s best friend and her mother specifically. Yet, there wasn’t a greater vision or an end goal.
He offers up a Bible verse to reinforce his interpretation.
Ecclesiasticus 26:10 If thy daughter be shameless, keep her in straitly, lest she abuse herself through overmuch liberty.
This scripture speaks to the folly of the liberated woman, and how she tends to self destruct. Margaret Atwood doesn’t mention this scripture in her novel, but through subtlety she highlights this truth. Whether this is intended or not I don’t know.
I’m going to take a huge leap and say “no, dude, it’s not intended. You’re just spectacularly missing the point.”
When you read between the lines, you can see how the feminist in Handmaids had no understanding of how their liberation would contribute to the benefit or potential collapse of the pre-Gilead society, same as the feminist today.
I don’t think Atwood is suggesting that too much feminism made most women in Gilead infertile.
To summarize, I don’t care much for the spoken intention behind the works. What they reveal through those works though, be it intentional or not, is where the truth lives, and from my black pilled perspective Margaret knows that feminism could lead to a dystopian future like this.
Somehow I suspect that Margaret — I guess we’re on a first name basis with Atwood now? — isn’t convinced that feminism is going to destroy the world; after all, she’s a feminist and the main world-ruiners in her novel are pollution and radiation. The book is not a warning to feminists telling them to be less feministy.
I know the meaning of a text is dependent at least in part on what readers make of it. But I don’t think I can blame Atwood or her novel for Mr. Coherence’s epic misreading. Sometimes MGTOWs are just plain idiots.
Follow me on Mastodon.
Send tips to dfutrelle at gmail dot com.
We Hunted the Mammoth relies on support from you, its readers, to survive. So please donate here if you can, or at David-Futrelle-1 on Venmo.
I think this guy read the book and jacked off to it like ir was porn
I just…what? This is on the same level as how TERFs misread it.
Yeah, when the author is not aware she’s calling out her own ideology, maybe that’s not what she’s doing.
AKA through not actually doing that at all.
My favorite professor told us we could interpret texts any way we like provided we can support our interpretation using the text. This fellow would never be able to defend his thesis using the book itself.
I guess on some level I’d always known we would one day reach a point in toxic masculinity where a man viewed Handmaid’s Tale less as a dystopian horror and more as a “how to” manual….
Very telling that this guy keeps repeating that he doesn’t see what the “end goal” is of feminism, how it would “contribute to society”. Apparently, women having control over their own lives and destinies, being full human beings and all, doesn’t register as worthy in and of itself to him.
Almost on topic, some examples in the honored tradition of “men explain my own book to me”:
“At a NASA Earth meeting 10 years ago, a white male post doc interrupted me to tell me that I didn’t understand human drivers of fire, that I def needed to read McCarty et al. Looked him in the eye, pulled my long hair back so he could read my name tag. “I’m McCarty et al.”” / Twitter
“Sometimes”?!! The MGTOW community is a veritable breeding ground for stupidity. (Along with selfishness, misogyny, entitlement, bigotry….)
@Lumipuna:
It’s even further from the point, though pretty closely related to yours. I’ve had a couple people cite my own research on trans & intersex experiences of domestic & sexual violence (inclusive of domestic/sexual child abuse) to justify grossly wrong statements. One of those was in a forgivable context, one was not.
More often it’s just people who think they know something when they clearly fucking don’t – they’re not even bothering to cite anything to justify their bullshit as fact. They just think that since they thought it, it must be true. I’ve had that experience hundreds of times.
The most classic example of that from my own life is cis men telling me what happens inside domestic & sexual violence shelters & how it’s different when trans people are allowed to participate in those programs.
I tell them that I’ve worked in those shelters & asked how many days, months or years they’ve worked in an anti-dv shelter… and they just zoom right by like I hadn’t said anything, talking like they know everything about in-shelter dynamics. Some will say “I’ve read a lot about it,” but they’ll never say what they read. Probably all of it is just rantings on the internet from people who hate trans people the way the asshat in the OP hates women, and have the same general level of interpretive and explanatory competence.
@Lumipuna:
That thread would be surreal in its metaness if it weren’t so commonplace: wall-to-wall men mansplaining mansplaining.
I hope everything terrible happens to these malicious MGTOW fucks if they don’t leave women alone.
@ Elaine The Witch
Wasn’t there some PUA (I think it was Roosh?) who described “Irréversible” as too violent to comfortably whack off to (which he would have done otherwise)? I often ask myself how big of a role a lack or reduced sense of empathy might play into the worldview of these people.
Maybe that also plays into OPs nonsense? If I’m unable to put myself into the position of others, how can I ever develop a comprehensive grasp of the world? It’s the way all humans learn but I guess empathy as a means to that becomes too much of a hassle for many people as they age
@rusalka
Honestly, with these people I think you could just call any woman a feminist even if she’s not, and then when something horrible happens to her these people would jack off to her suffering. It could be a little girl or an elderly nun, someone would just have to go “this female is a feminist” and then they would jack off to her getting beheaded or something.
They hate women, but they know at least that there is suppose to be some “good women” out there, but they think all feminist are bad, their the enemy, their sub human. So you put that title on any woman and then it’s free game to jack off to their suffering.
@Trying
I think he’d be able to defend it to himself and according to his standards, so he probably thinks that means it’s legit.
I feel like he could’ve gone down the easier route of just calling the book a self-own. Acknowledge what it’s supposed to be saying and then describe all the ways it (allegedly) says the opposite. It would seem much more reasonable than claiming everyone, including the author, has been wrong about the book for decades.
But no. He sees it, so everyone who doesn’t is either lying or blind.
I think maybe a lot of those DV shelter transphobes have fundamentally misunderstood the purpose of the shelters. Their position makes somewhat more sense if you think they are to shelter people from penises rather than from violence.
Of course, the word “violence” is right there in the name …
@ Rusalka:
“Wasn’t there some PUA (I think it was Roosh?) who described “Irréversible” as too violent to comfortably whack off to…”
Wait? “Irreversible?” Are we taking about the Monica Bello film? The one with the 10 minute rape scene that’s so brutal it seems far longer than 10 minutes?
If we are just…eew, eew, eew.
Now I need a bath in something suitably caustic.
No, I haven’t seen the film, nor am I likely too–any more than I’m likely to subject myself to “A Serbian Film.” I’ve read enough about both movies (and a host of others) to know I’d put myself into a blinding rage.
Just…ugh.
Otoh, I did enjoy reading the Twitter thread re mansplaining. Some excellent retorts by the women.
@Surplus
I think they know the purpose, but they care more about hurting trans people than they do about protecting women. I think a few might genuinely be concerned or uncertain, but most know full well what they’re doing.
48 Hours did an episode on Roy Den Hollander, the jerk who killed the MRA lawyer and a judge’s son. Cassie Jaye is prominently interviewed and talks up “men’s rights.” Sigh.
I agree with Elaine. He really got off on it, and obviously spent a fair amount of time thinking about it.
Not about the actual book, of course, but about his fever-dream of it.
There might be a glimmer of hope for Mr. solo_and_simple, who still seems able to sometimes glimpse reality. Won’t last if he keeps hanging with miggies, though.
I am a cis woman who has spent time in science fiction fandom, computer science, and engineering environments. I wish the term mansplaining had been invented sooner, but at least now I can retroactively describe my life.
The benefit of women being free is that women are free. If you need more than that, you’re part of the problem.
Taking a glimpse at Twitter’s trending topics, I’ve seen March the 8th trending. In advance, I want to say that the nation that has started it and continues to celebrate it (Russia) is now a fascist piece of shit that should have no voice with regards to what women can and can’t do.
Unfortunately most nations that still celebrate it are countries that, although are nominally communist (or were), but lack intersectional understanding and any real commitment to women’s liberation.
@Lukas Xavier
I disagree. I think this type of deontological ethic is weak and often ruinous. Though how women’s freedom is a net benefit for society and women is extremely easy to assess from a more consequentialist point of view.
The man in the OP did grasped a reality in his bizarre interpretation of the Handmaid’s Tale. Feminism doesn’t have a central leadership, never had and neither does it have a clear and common objective outside of the vague-ish statement of “gender equality”. In my opinion this is more a strength and something to be praised than a weakness. It’s also a clear sign that it’s a genuine liberation movement.
I haven’t read it, shocking overside of me, but there was a continuation last year, that sounded like me, like Gilead was loosing this one.
@epronovost
This is the case for most human rights movements, see also antiracism, LGBTQ+ rights, disability rights, etc. While each of those may have individuals who are prominent at a given time or for a given region, none have a formal leadership. In fact, if a social movement does have a formal leadership I find that very suspicious, as usually that’s a sign that it isn’t an organic movement but an astroturf campaign.
Sure, you can do that and it might be helpful to do as an exercise or as a way to get through to certain people.
However, if I really need an argument beyond “it’s the right thing to do”, then we clearly have some fundamental disagreement about what kind of world we want to live in and that’s going to affect how much I can trust you (generic “you”, not making assumptions).
@ naglfar
I had to learn what a holacracy was for something I’m involved with. I was sent a big reading list. I barely understood it. Then, at the first sort of ‘formal’ meeting to set out the constitution* the opening words were “Of course, our proposed structure is not a true holacracy…”
I gave up then and just said “Email me with what you need me to do.”
[*and apparently it wasn’t technically a constitution either.]