Plum Crazy

The Feminists was written in 1971. It is a dystopia in which feminists now rule the world, and men are relegated to nothing more than chattel for breeding purposes. To make matters worse, women are apparently trying to find a way to even eliminate the need to use men for breeding. One man has broken the law by making love to a consenting woman without permission from the government. He becomes a fugitive and runs across other people who have broken similar laws and are fighting to overthrow their feminist oppressors.

The Handmaid’s Tale was written in 1986. It tells of a dystopia in which right-wing religious fundamentalists have taken over and fertile women are relegated to nothing more than chattel for breeding purposes for the upper class (since most women were rendered infertile after exposure to pesticides, nuclear waste, and chemical weapons). One woman develops an illicit sort of relationship with the upper-class man she is sent to have children for (he plays Scrabble with her, brings her cosmetics and a cocktail dress), but does not become pregnant by him. The man’s wife then arranges for her to sleep with the chauffeur. They develop a relationship, and she thinks she is pregnant. The wife then discovers the cocktail dress and has the protagonist arrested. In the end, she escapes to safety thanks to rebel forces.

Consider what was going on in society during the times these two novels were written. In 1971, feminism was on the rise. It was a new, intense force; one whose rhetoric was novel to the masses. Women were burning their bras, marching for freedom. The sexual revolution was at its height. This was a profound challenge to society’s long-held traditions. More women were working, threatening the jobs of men. Women were behaving more like men in their sexual lives, which was further threatening to men. The Feminists perfectly echoed the fears of society, as its mores were challenged and changed. However, dystopic representations of a female-ruled world were not precisely new. Tales such as The Revolt of Man and A World of Women were written during the women’s suffrage movement as well.

By 1986, although feminism had made great strides, as a political movement it had suffered a big backlash. The Equal Rights Amendment had been defeated. Feminism as a movement was considered to be peopled by radical man-hating dykes, thus turning off ordinary women who probably support the true goals of feminism. Like many political movements that challenged the traditional orthodoxy, it was marginalized and defined by its most extreme members. Instead, Jerry Falwell’s Moral Majority, instrumental in the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan, was not far removed from its heyday. Fears of radical feminists gaining too much power were replaced by fears of Christian conservatives gaining too much power. The Handmaid’s Tale told of those fears.

Examples of pop culture producing material that bely our deepest fears abound. Societal fears of technology drove sci-fi writers to portray technological dystopias. Consider The Terminator, The Matrix, anything by Philip Dick, even Brave New World and Metropolis. Our fears of totalitarianism were expressed in 1984, Anthem, and Brazil. For that matter, even The Lord of the Rings expresses a fear of totalitarianism, as well as a fear of the loss of nature. In the original Star Trek, the Klingons seemed to represent the Russians at a time when the Cold War was in full swing. By the time we got to The Next Generation, the Cold War was ended, but we feared being economically displaced by the Japanese. Suddenly the Romulans became a bigger threat, and their dress took on shades of Japanese samurai costumes.

In this context, it is not surprising that The Handmaid’s Tale should be considered relevant today. Christian conservatives still represent a force to be reckoned with in American politics. The type of novel that Lileks describes doesn’t really represent our current fears. Most Americans are just not afraid that homosexuals are going to take over the world; we like heterosexual sex too much. Feminist has also become something of a dirty word. Although, a movie entitled The Stepford Husbands was produced in 1996, so female-run dystopias are not so far out of the mainstream as some might like to think.