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The handmaids have no parental rights over the children that they give birth to. Once a baby is born, they are immediately given to the commander’s wife. Handmaids are allowed to stay with their babies for a short period, breastfeeding them, however after they are weaned, the handmaids must leave the household and are allocated to a new Commander to perform the same function all over again. Almost every aspect of daily life in Gilead directly or indirectly relates to fertility. For instance, when people greet each other, they say “Blessed Be the Fruit”, encouraging fertility, that is, a handmaid will be “blessed” with a “fruit” of a child (Geall, n.d.).
Read: Is He not a Rapist? Confusions of the Raped Body
U.S. Supreme Court’s Overturn of Roe v. Wade: A Setback for Women’s Rights
Reproductive suppression takes a toll on the health and lives of women who have no choice but to subject their bodies to patriarchal and misogynist systems fueled with white supremacy. The United States, which is often referred to as the “land of the free” is no exception. In the case of Roe v. Wade (1973), the US Supreme Court struck down criminal abortion laws in Texas, holding that the right to abortion is a fundamental right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution (pp. 163-166). However, on 24 June 2022, the Supreme Court issued its judgment on the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022), overturning the Roe v. Wade decision, declaring that “the [US] Constitution does not confer a right to abortion … and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to [States]” (p.69).
Article 12 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) protects the right to health, encompassing the right to bodily autonomy and sexual and reproductive freedom. However, the US is among the seven States which has not ratified the Convention. Following the overturn of Roe v. Wade, the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (2022), which is a monitoring body for CEDAW, called on the U.S. to adhere to the Convention and reiterated that:
Access to safe and legal abortion and to quality post-abortion care, especially in cases of complications resulting from unsafe abortions, helps to reduce maternal mortality rates, prevent adolescent and unwanted pregnancies and ensure women’s right to freely decide over their bodies.
As of now, abortion is banned or mostly banned in 27% of the US States and roughly one in four women between the ages of 15-44 live in states where abortion is prohibited (Kitchener, et al., 2022). In some states, like Missouri, abortion is only allowed in cases of a medical emergency and there are no exceptions for rape (Weinberg, 2022).
Read: A Leap Backwards in Time
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) as an Alternative to the Death Sentence in the Handmaid’s Tale
Ofglen (Alexis Bledel) is one of the handmaids who is a lesbian. It comes as no surprise that in Gilead homosexuality is a grave crime, punished with a death sentence. In episode 3 of the first season, Ofglen’s sexual orientation gets revealed to the system, however, instead of punishing her with a death sentence, Ofglen wakes up in a hospital room with her clitoris cut off. The only reason why Ofglen is spared death is that she is still fertile and can bear children.
From an intersectional perspective, Ofglen’s tragic story illustrates overlapping, concurrent forms of oppression. Her gender coupled with her sexual orientation was a key component that made her subject to such inhumane punishment.
FGM is Not a Fiction
World Health Organization (2022) defines FGM as “the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injuries to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” Mostly carried out on young girls before the age of 15, FGM has affected more than 200 million girls and women in 31 countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (UNICEF, 2022). Cases of FGM have also occurred in the United States (Cuevas & Moghe, 2017).
FGM constitutes one of the gravest human rights abuses against girls and women. The practice not only amounts to torture, and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, but it also violates the right to life when FGM-induced death occurs.
Read: Female Genital Mutilation: Facts and Resources
Education & Women in The Handmaid’s Tale: The World Without Words
In the Handmaid’s Tale, women are not allowed either to read or write. The government of Gilead, like many other totalitarian regimes, uses illiteracy as a tool to exercise full control over women, lowering the chances of resistance and rebellion. The anti-literacy policy against women is quite obvious throughout the series. For instance, when handmaids go grocery shopping, we see that there are no words printed on the labels of products displayed on the shelves at the store.
In the season 2 finale, Serena Joy Waterford (Yvonne Strahovski), the wife of the high-ranking commander Fred Waterford, dares to read a verse from the bible aloud in front of Gilead’s leadership. This act has been interpreted as Serena’s “public plea to allow the women of Gilead to be able to read and study the Bible” (Wigler, 2018). In response, Serena was punished by cutting off her little finger. The punishment was co-authored by her husband, commander Waterford.
Read: Silencing of Women Around the Globe
Right to Education for Women: The Reality
Legally binding international human rights treaties, such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination (CEDAW) oblige States to address and eliminate discrimination against women in different areas, including education (Articles 3 & 13 ICESCR; Article 10 CEDAW).
Notwithstanding the legal protections, as shown in the Handmaid’s Tale, equitable and equal access to education is far from being attained for women. In its General Recommendation No. 36, the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (2017), stressed that:
certain factors disproportionately prevent girls and women from claiming and enjoying their basic human right to education. Such factors include barriers to access for girls and women from disadvantaged and marginalized groups, exacerbated by poverty and economic crises, gender stereotyping in curricula, textbooks, and teaching processes, violence against girls and women in and out of school, and structural and ideological restrictions to their engagement in male-dominated academic and vocational fields (para. 4).
Just recently, the Taliban in Afghanistan posed an indefinite ban on university education for women (Noori, 2022). Prior to that, shortly after the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the insurgent group effectively deprived girls of secondary education (Graham-Harrison, 2021).
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