Matriarchy, Now?
My gender has made a right mess of things. Perhaps it’s time the women took over.
Hulu’s recent adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, was chilling for a number of reasons. The ritualization of rape. The insidious efficacy of the informant state. The appeal of reaction in the face of existential threat. The willingness with which people acquiesce to abusive leadership when it arrives cloaked in politesse. The realization, very early on, that someone like me — agnostic, big-mouthed, anti-authority — wouldn’t have lasted much past day one of the Gilead insurrection.
But a dystopian vision is most frightening for its credibility. As I watched Offred’s abasement at the hands of well-dressed slavers and systemic misogyny, I couldn’t help thinking: This world — this world in which men subjugate women in the name of spiritual rectitude while permitting themselves to indulge in posh bordellos — is what a certain version of masculine utopia actually looks like.
I have already written about the epiphanies of maturity — how certain contextual realities, which might seem remote or implausible in the idealism of youth, tend to bear more heavily as you get older. The springboard for this particular reflection stems from my growing apprehension that men are genuinely useless shits. Were it not for…
