Of course he understands her work better than she does. She’s just a woman! Who cares that she herself said this:
She should just shut up and let a man who has never even read her book explain to her what she was writing about.
@Melizmatic just said everything I said, but far more eloquently, as usual:
Um… you realize that that avatar is not me, nor anyone who even superficially resembles me, correct?
Since you don’t like my avatar, I’ve changed it.
NOTE: I am not actually a young black girl, but I’m not the former CEO of Pepsi either.
Dude…
You either seriously don’t understand the point of speculative fiction, or you’re being intentionally obtuse. I’m willing to believe it’s some combination of the two.
Nobody would write speculative fiction that has no relevance to the real world, and is just a little fantasy that they spun up in their fevered little imaginations. Even if they did, nobody would read it, because it would be completely unrelatable. The Handmaid’s Tale, on the other hand, was extremely well-received, being nominated for a Man Booker Prize and a Nebula Award and winning the Arthur C. Clarke Award, among numerous other nominations and accolades. Most readers saw current and past events reflected in this book, and Margaret Atwood herself had this to say:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/09/03/specials/atwood-gilead.html
'You could say it’s a response to ‘it can’t happen here.’
But men who have never read her book are talking about it, so she should shut up and know her place I guess.
Hello? These happen or have happened in the United States, and the Government has either sponsored them or turned a blind eye. The US has capital punishment, just like Iran and Saudi Arabia. It doesn’t matter to me that we use lethal injections, firing squads, and electrocution instead of stoning, or drawing and quartering, or whatever, because it’s a fucking barbaric practice and it needs to stop.
Also, we’re at a period in history with comparatively few lynchings, but lynchings used to be big family events with cookouts and commemorative postcards for sale. These were technically extrajudicial executions… technically… but do you think the perpetrators faced justice?
There have been protesters viciously attacked by government forces during our lifetimes. In fact, even during last year. Look how protesters were treated at Standing Rock. There was no machine gunning there, but there were people maimed, and there was chaos everywhere. If you want examples of people getting gunned down in the US by government forces in your lifetime, look at the Kent State shootings. That was still fresh in people’s minds when Atwood wrote this in the early 80s.
Civil asset forfeiture is indeed a thing. It’s not as brazen as it is in the book, and not directed mainly at women, but it’s still pretty brazen. This, and the prison-industrial complex, is a thing, and it goes without saying that the prison-industrial complex is a stopgap replacement for slavery. You want to talk about forfeiture of assets? Look no further than slavery, and the people who want to bring it back.
Both happen in the US but are not government sponsored. Have you heard of the Jeffs family and the FLDS Church, by any chance? They’re probably one of the more famous examples of large-scale systemic kidnapping and cult indoctrination, but are far from the only examples. I have known several people who have escaped from cults and whose lives were destroyed in the process. Also, what use is being in a cult if you can’t rape whomever you want whenever you want? I assure you, religious rape ceremonies occur in cults, oftentimes more often than monthly.
As far as genital mutilation for treating homosexuality, FGM is a thing in much of Africa and is practiced by Christians and Muslims alike. It’s a cultural thing, not practiced in the US to any large extent, but we’ve borrowed from other cultures in the past so there’s nothing stopping us from borrowing this little practice as well.
Also, are you aware that gay conversion therapy is most assuredly practiced in the US, and is only banned in nine states?
Ah, this is a Brown People Problem ™. This is the sort of shit that Boko Haram (literally, Western Education Is Forbidden) does. It doesn’t happen here, but do you really think it couldn’t? Do you really think we’re so superior to the Darkest Africans that we couldn’t do exactly what they do? Do you think America is exceptional?
There is one race. The Human Race. We can’t write off something another culture does. When any of us commits atrocities, it affects us all.
