Susan Cox
Over the years, I’ve heard many references to Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale,” so I finally read it several months ago. Atwood’s book is set in a dystopian future America where a totalitarian regime enforces rigid social roles and women who are still fertile are forced to become “Handmaids” to produce children for the “Commanders”. These Handmaids are separated from any family they may have had and from their own names. Their names become a combination of the word “of” and the name of the Commander they belong to. If the Handmaids are sent to a different Commander, their names change to reflect the name of the new Commander.
Atwood shares the story of the Handmaid Offred (of-Fred) weaving together her current experiences with her memories of life before the new regime took over. We never learn Offred’s real name, but we know she worries that she will forget it someday.
In the recent past women were also routinely referred to by their husbands’ names. For example, around the time I read this book, I read an article in The Republic about the Columbus Indiana Children’s Choir performing a new song using words from a local poet. I was dismayed when I learned that the poem, published in The Evening Republic in Oct 1962, had the author listed as Mrs. Will Roth. What was this woman’s actual name? Would she only be known by her husband’s name? I urgently read the rest of the article and was able to rest easy when the newspaper found the author’s son and learned that his mother’s name was Hazel Ruth (Boll) Roth.
This article and book make me grateful that I can be my own person and use my own name. I’ve always been a bit protective of my name. In high school a few friends would call me Sue, but I corrected them, reminding them that my name was Susan. My parents didn’t give me a middle name so I could use my maiden name as my middle name when I got married. I ‘ve generally included my middle initial B in my name since then. At the request of my children, I didn’t change my name when I got remarried and I get annoyed to no end when people call me by or address things to me with my husband’s last name. I want to be known as an individual, not just as who I am in relation to someone else or by what my role is. I think we all do.
Other aspects of “The Handmaid’s Tale” made me feel horrified, a little ill, terrified, and angry. I know the book is fiction, but the premise of a small group of people taking over a society and forcing everyone to live according to the rules they think are best has happened and continues to happen in real life. Additionally, we are not that far away from women not having very many rights. For instance, it was not until 1974, just 50 years ago, that women were granted the right to open a bank account or obtain a credit card on their own. Before that, banks could refuse them or require them to have their husband or another man cosign for the account. It’s only been 14 years since sex discrimination in health insurance was outlawed, and still women often pay more than men for their health insurance.
Various groups around the world including some here in the US would like to put power in the hands of a few select men and deprive women and minority groups of the rights they have gained in the last 50 years. I am not willing to go back to a world like that.
Susan Cox is one of The Republic’s community columnists, and all opinions expressed are those of the writer. She is an avid reader, an outdoor enthusiast, a mother, a grandmother, and an adjunct instructor of English at Indiana University Columbus. Send comments to [email protected].
