The point of Gilead is to break us
by digby
This quote by Michelle Goldberg about Trump's misogyny just nails it:
I’m not sure that even well-intentioned men understand how relentlessly degrading this presidency is for many women. Having a man who does not recognize the humanity of more than half the population in a position of such power is a daily insult; it never really goes away. Perhaps this is why many women found the TV version of The Handmaid’s Tale so resonant, even though Trump, the former owner of a casino strip club, is the last person one can imagine instituting a Calvinist theocracy. Gilead’s fictional dystopia captures our constant incredulous horror at finding ourselves ruled by thuggish, unaccountable woman-haters who appear to revel in their own impunity.
It is a daily reminder that for many, many people the fact that women are clearly, demonstrably unequal in this world in both institutional, professional ways as well as our place in society. We're shown examples of it dozens of times a day and told by everyone, even each other, to stifle it, put it away, it isn't important, we're too sensitive etc, etc.
The rock of "civilized behavior" that usually sits atop this world's essential, fundamental misogyny has been turned over by this obnoxious piece of gelatinous offal and we have to look at it over and over and over again as if it's designed to make us stop objecting and accept it as the normal course of things.
That's what we learn from The Handmaid's Tale: the point of their relentless oppression is to break us. It doesn't have to be a full blown dystopian theocracy. All it takes is the the normalization of rank misogyny by our leaders and a million small humiliating acts of degradation every day by people we're supposed to trust.
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