Lessons in Blame

This section of The Handmaid’s Tale clings to me, like a bruise refusing to fade. It’s the Testifying scene, where Janine stands trembling in front of the other women, forced to recount her assault story, degraded for her experience. The women around her, her so-called sisters, chant in unison: “Her fault, her fault, her fault.” Their words become weapons, rhythmic and rehearsed, slicing through her. This scene reveals how brainwashed the people of Gilead are becoming, how normalized it is to blame women for the things they are victims of. It is drilled into the girls’ minds that guilt is a form of obedience. She refers to Janine as an “example” when she accepts the blame. Swallows it. Although it’s a malicious ritual, it isn’t the cruelty that I can recall in my own life, but the aspect of control.

It horrified me because it felt too close to our world. Atwood writes of a dystopia where women are punished for existing in their own skin, but I’ve seen pieces of that world outside of fiction. I think about the many ways women today are still taught to feel guilty for the way they dress, look, or simply exist. Testifying isn’t as far away as we’d like to think—it’s just disguised in regular, everyday life.

The patterns of the words, “Who led them on?” followed by, “She did, she did, she did,” made me think about how often girls are blamed for things completely out of their control. It’s the same idea showing up in our world, concealed in casual comments: What were you wearing? Did you give him the wrong idea? Did you confuse him? Every one implies the same thing—that the fault is somehow, always yours. I’ve felt that pressure before, to make myself smaller or quieter just to keep my body mine. To avoid conflict, to not provoke anyone. To not be too much.

My whole life, I’ve tried to desensitize myself to sexual comments. Not the ones of initiation, even—but the warnings.

Don’t be distracting to your peers. It will be too tempting for everyone here. Wear a sweater when you leave. Never leave your windows open. Don’t post that, he’ll think less of you. Hide yourself.

Consuming these words from the age of 7, I began to struggle with my loss of control. My body was becoming less and less like mine. It was a topic for others, an invitation to dissect me. And, underneath this erasure of autonomy, my mind began to wander much like Offred’s, creating biases around my own struggles. I found myself more insecure, more jealous. I’d learned to dissect those around me, consuming the toxic patterns I’d been taught.

Offred recalls the girls chanting “Crybaby” at Janine. However, she reveals, “We mean it, which was the bad part.” She acknowledges it’s wrong, but still can’t help but resent Janine. I read this to be how internalized misogyny functions: it teaches women to believe women are less. It begins internally, like a parasite, spreading externally, to how you perceive and understand the world around you.

This idea grows more passive when Offred narrates: “She looked disgusting: weak, squirmy, blotchy, pink, like a newborn mouse. None of us wanted to look like that ever. For a moment, even though we knew what was being done to her, we despised her.”

This lack of empathy Offred has is something I sadly feel myself relate to. She feels disgusted by Janine’s vulnerability, her lack of control over her emotions. It makes her feel out of control, in turn.

Again, I found myself lacking empathy for others due to how I was treated. There were times where I’d comment on my friends’ appearance as a direct result of how it was done to me. At barely 9 years old, I was under the impression that everyone around me was a threat. They had “normal” bodies, but that didn’t mean they got to feel normal, while I felt alienated. I resented how easy it was for them to accept their bodies for what they were. Janine was obedient, and Offred was disgusted by that; but only because she was truly, actually disgusted by herself.

But, through all of this, I consider the impact of accountability. Not in the sense of blaming Janine or anyone else, but in recognizing how deeply these lessons affect us. It’s so easy to see external forces like Gilead and reject them as extreme, but the reality is that smaller versions of these forces exist everywhere.

I resonate with this scene because it forces a confrontation with vulnerability and control, challenging me to see both the systems around me, and how I have unconsciously participated in them. Atwood’s depiction of shame, blame, and internalized misogyny is unnervingly familiar, and that recognition makes it powerful. It reminds me that reclaiming autonomy over my body and my voice isn’t just a personal victory, but a small rebellion against the biases and patterns I’ve absorbed throughout my life.