The Eyes Are Watching You

We look over the men who watch the women when we walk by. We either have two emotions, Fear or Fancy. Most women are caught by fear when men creep upon girls who look and act a certain way for their personal gain, others fancy when men even breathe in their perimeter liking the attention that they bring. In the book “The Handmaids Tale” the women are like helpless swimming fish in the water needing to find its mate before they die. These ladies are forced to reproduce and have very strict rules in the land of Gilead.

The men uses the women for sex. Sex is important to the men to repopulate for a “better” lifestyle than what was becoming of the world. Women are seen as just to make babies and help out with house work, If you can’t repopulate that means you are less than a woman, therefore the only thing that makes you a woman is you have a vagina. One quote I found interesting was, “I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely.” meaning to me, women are supposed to not step out of their comfort zone and to obey the man. Men are the leaders and they control the women so they are supposed to follow and not be determined in a sense of not being free and taking control. It goes into sex too because the handmaid doesn’t seem to be enjoying sexual benefits from the men in the book more so rather just doing what they are told to do..having babies.

But whose fault was it? Aunt Helena says, holding up one plump finger. Her fault, her fault, her fault, we chant in unison. Who led them on? Aunt Helena beams, pleased with us. She did. She did. She did. Why did God allow such a terrible thing to happen? Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson. Teach her a lesson.” This quote was very self hatred, For years women and men have blamed other women for getting SA or raped on how they look or acted towards men, Its never the man fault for making the woman uncomfortable or touching on her. The blame when women do it tells that they self hate on women and take sides with the man which is very misogynistic .How men pray on women as if their objects are sick and they like to play victim into making girls feel like its their fault that they should be blamed on facing sexual abuse problems.

When I was little I faced those similar problems too, relating this into the real world issues, Growing up as a young black girl sexual abuse and sexualizing is common. The older generation tells me that red lipstick is “too grown” for us when in reality you should be sexualizing young black girls and we just wanted to explore makeup. “There’s hardly any point in my thinking, is there? I say. What I think doesn’t matter. Which is the only reason he can tell me things.” Is a quote from the book which tells what a woman should and shouldn’t do. How we it’s no point of thinking because we have no right to think because we are simply just “women”. A man should only tell us what to do because they are superior to us and we have no right to believe what we believe. Relating that back to me, the men in the family would always say, “always listen to your husband when he’s talking to you” so I could be a better wife but in reality its only to keep men in power and to make women feel weak-minded when they are facing issues.

“There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.” Spoke to me because as ladies we tend to be hushed down when having freedom. For years when women wanted to work the same jobs as men do, or have a different opinion than men. It was never what the women wanted more so what could benefit what the man wanted. This book had a lot of feminist beliefs and it took a good understanding of what the world would become if men controlled it and we would be used as pawns in their game of pleasure and resource. We should stand up for what we want to do, and speak on it.