Why is the Handmaid’s Tale so relevant?

Rose Reese
Aug 29, 2017 · 2 min read

As many people know and have seen, Hulu came out with a television series, based off a book written in the mid 1980’s, The Handmaid’s Tale. The Handmaid’s Tale focuses on a dystopian society that vaguely resembles our own, but only if someone had broken it into a million pieces and then tried to reassemble it with only half of them. This new world is clean, bright, proper, and scary.

What is the biggest problem facing the future land of Gilead? BABIES. As a nation that is currently facing overpopulation, this new society cannot produce enough. So, in this strict and alien world, women’s civil rights are completely stripped from them and they are dehumanized. If you are fertile and able to conceive children, you become a handmaid and are assigned to a home in which you become more or less a surrogate for one of the powerful male leaders of the new country.

Now, you may be asking yourself at this point, how could this possibly be relevant or related to society today? With current laws and debates over women’s reproductive rights, and the oddly terrifying power the government seems to gain on our everyday actions, The Handmaid’s Tale gives us a picture of a future that is not entirely impossible. Each episode I watched gave me chills because you never really think that a situation like this could occur until it does. This series makes things feel very real and like you are also living in it with the characters. Watch it and you’ll be intrigued from the get go. #praisebe

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