The Handmaid's Tale Asks Some Huge Questions About Society

The Handmaid's Tale has been airing on Channel 4 in the UK for the past few months and its first season comes to its conclusion on Sunday night as the world waits to find out if Offred has become pregnant.

The world depicted in the series shows a world where men are in full control and women who are not considered high in society are kidnapped, taken away from all that they know and brought to the fictional city of Gilead where they are to be used as handmaids, women who will have children for the barren wives of their commanders. Children are then homed with other families and many of the husbands were then killed if they were not considered useful.

Whilst many have looked at this story that was first written back in 1985 as one of complete fiction, sadly it isn't a far stretch from the way life could be in the future given the current state of affairs in the world. Many fans have already made comparisons between the world that Margret Atwood wrote more than 30 years ago and the current affairs in America right now under the control of Donald Trump.

The Women's March in the show that is shown when it is made official that females no longer have any rights mirrors an actual march that took place only a few weeks ago. Hulu decided to make the show long before Trump was elected to power but given his recent comments about Transgender people and a new law he has decided to pass, it seems that it won't be long until there could be some huge changes in America that could present new obstacles for women to climb.

With leaders like Donald Trump in power, it is easy seeing him take away women's right to work, earn money and own property, much like the series, but it even goes as far as to make it illegal for women to read. There are punishments for such things as well, as Offred explained that if a handmaid was caught reading then she would lose a hand and if they were caught more than once then it was a killable offence.

There are Aunts in the show who are supposed to look after the girls that they are training, but as far as they are concerned, as long as they are able to still make children, they can make the punishments as severe as they like. One girl was seen refusing to do as she was told in the first episode and she lost an eye because of it. She later learnt the error of her ways, but in the end, it was Janine who ended up helping the Handmaids revolt.

It is hard to watch the show and it not be a scary look at what life could become for females or the way life already is for many women in western countries. It is hard to understand that this world that is entirely fiction really isn't much of a far cry from a world that many women live in every single day. In some countries, it is still illegal for women to drive and to be educated. Why does it take something like this to finally wake people up and see that in some countries women have rights that they completely take for granted?

The show may have gained quite a lot of negative feedback because it is a hard show to understand, but it is an easy concept for the world to turn to. Equality is still not recognised all over the world, so what is really stopping this from becoming our very real future?