It's Not Just Fiction

One thing that resonates with me a lot from The Handmaid’s Tale is the societal treatment of women. It resembles my mom’s culture a lot and reminds me of my family’s experience that has become normalized to them. My mom is from a republic of Russia that’s called Chechnya, which is entirely muslim. The way the entire culture works is that men work, while women: stay home, have a bunch of children, and cook and clean all day. Chechen women’s value is based on being a servant; an object. It’s also very common for Chechens to have arranged marriages, and more crudely, men can ‘claim’ a woman on the street just by touching them.

Chapter 34 really hit home with me because of the Prayvaganza’s similarities to my culture’s idea of marriage. Chechen culture isn’t quite as extreme as a mass marriage ceremony but there are still arranged marriages for practically children. Offred refers to Gilead’s philosophy on marrying off 14 year olds “Start them soon is the policy, there’s not a moment to be lost” (pg. 219). Most of my relatives were married by age 16-19, including my mom in her first marriage. ‘There is not a moment to be lost’ because they want them to be the most physically viable for pregnancy; their worth is based on how useful they are to their husbands. Just like how Offred describes the Prayvaganza’s matches, it’s also extremely common for young girls to get married off to grown men in Chechnya. It’s the same in both Gilead and Chechnya. This chapter especially resonated with me because I witnessed how this affected my cousin, whose father married her off when she was 18 to a man she’d never met before. This was a really hard time for her and everyone else in my family. Even though it was her life, my cousin had no say in the matter, and no one else in my family could do anything because that’s how the patriarchy in Chechnya works. “they’ll always have been silent” (219) Those girls getting married in the Prayvaganza knew they were powerless in that situation, resulting in their silence, similarly to my cousin. Women in both societies often don’t get a choice in their future.

My cousin thankfully was able to get divorced after a few months of being trapped in a loveless marriage, which angered her father. My cousin’s punishment for her decision to get divorced was her father never speaking to her again, which was 6 years ago now. Which reminds me of page 220 “Love, said Aunt Lydia with distaste. Don’t let me catch you at it. No mooning and June-ing around here, girls. Wagging her finger at us. Love is not the point.” I guess that was my uncle’s mentality - ‘love’ just doesn’t matter. But just like in Gilead where people are trapped in loveless marriages, the same thing happens to many women in my culture.

Another thing about Gilead’s objectification of women that reminds me of Chechen culture is their requirements about women’s clothing. Just like the different roles for women in Gilead, all Chechen women are forced to not only cover up, but they can only wear skirts/dresses. Only in the past few years when I have gone to visit my mom’s side of the family for the summer I’ve been subjected to this rule. It feels really dehumanizing, having to dress and act a certain way just to not get judged by my own family. Six weeks out of the year I live how a Chechen woman does, which means most of the days I’m taking care of children, constantly cleaning, and rarely get a chance to just sit down. Frankly, I love my family, but it’s incredibly exhausting. And having to wear a skirt through a full day of non-stop physical labor I really relate to how Offred feels having to wear a warm dress in hot weather. Honestly it has ruined skirts/dresses for me. Often I feel like I physically cannot dress similarly to how I would during the summer, I just get a reminder of being treated like a servant. Chechens are taught that women who wear pants draw more unwanted attention to their body from men. Essentially, taught the same as how Offred and other girls in the Red Center are taught about dressing modestly. “The spectacles women used to make of themselves. Oiling themselves like roast meat on a spit, and bare backs and shoulders, on the street, in public, and legs, not even stockings on them, no wonder those things used to happen.”(pg. 55) When one of my cousins first explained to me how pants were forbidden because they drew attention from men, I heard all the same things. Two cultures that believe in victim blaming. Just like the Red Center brainwashing Handmaids, it really feels like my relatives are completely brainwashed.

To many Americans, The Handmaid’s Tale is just a dystopian novel. However, in my experience with my own culture, there are women all around the world who can relate to a lot of how Gilead treats women.