From wikipedia:
Fitting with her statements that The Handmaid’s Tale is a work of speculative fiction, not science fiction, Atwood’s novel offers a satirical view of various social, political, and religious trends of the United States in the 1980s. Her motivation for writing the novel was her belief that in the 1980s, the religious right was discussing what they would do with/to women if they took power, including the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, and the Ronald Reagan administration.[12][failed verification] Atwood questions what would happen if these trends, and especially “casually held attitudes about women” were taken to their logical end.[13]
The plot intro:
After a staged attack that killed the President of the United States and most of Congress, a radical political group called the “Sons of Jacob” uses theonomic ideology to launch a revolution.[8] The United States Constitution is suspended, newspapers are censored, and what was formerly the United States of America is changed into a military dictatorship known as the Republic of Gilead. The new regime moves quickly to consolidate its power, overtaking all other religious groups, including Christian denominations.
The regime reorganizes society using a peculiar interpretation of some Old Testament ideas, and a new militarized, hierarchical model of social and religious fanaticism among its newly created social classes. One of the most significant changes is the limitation of women’s rights. Women become the lowest-ranking class and are not allowed to own money or property, or to read and write. Most significantly, women are deprived of control over their own reproductive functions. Though the regime controls most of the country, there are various rebel groups that are still active.
Fair warning - don’t check out the replies on that post. Literally the dumbest “people” in the universe in there
You’re making it really hard for me to not go see what dumb shit people are lecturing Margaret Atwood about regarding her own novel.
You have been warned. There is nowhere to run
My urge has been defeated by my being too lazy to find the actual tweet.
For the morbidly curious, I found the tweet by going on the author’s profile (using Nitter, naturally) and scrolling down a bit on her posts.
So an average day on Twitter?
Creator level.
Maybe I’m on the wrong level of intelligence, but what am I missin here? Like, the stupidity of mansplaining to the author is hilarious, but am I missin context of what Islam vs Christianity in regards to women voting and shedding their red an whites?
The book wasn’t about Islam. It also wasn’t about Christianity. It was about the Dominion Theorcracy which resembles more what we see with the religious extremists in America.
Edit: I would like to add that it also fits religious extremism in Islamic countries, but that’s not what the aim of the author was. She definitely meant America and their extremists. She even created a flag that looks awfully similar to the American flag.
Dominion Theology is a group of Christian political ideologies that seek to institute a nation governed by Christians based on their personal understandings of biblical law. Extents of rule and ways of achieving governing authority are varied. For example, Dominion Theology can include theonomy, but does not necessarily involve advocating Mosaic law as the basis of government. The label is applied primarily toward groups of Christians in the United States.
