The Handmaid's Tale of the Destruction of Democracy

Warning: spoilers for Hulu's/Channel 4's The Handmaid's Tale

"In a gradually heating bathtub, you'd be boiled to death before you knew it."

Things have never been so good, right? It's 2017 and more than ever before women are MPs, there is same-sex marriage and a muslim Mayor of London. Our country has never been so diverse, so progressive.
So much on the brink of regression.

10 people could be all it takes. 10 people could be the difference between the rights of gays and lesbians to marry and adopt, or not. 10 people could be the difference between the legal right to abort, or not.

No, not really. They're only 10 people, you cry. 
No, really. Because 10 people are currently the difference between Theresa May forming a government, pushing through policies that will make people on benefits poorer, make pensioners poorer, make food banks more necessary and keep people in debt for years - or fighting every policy battle endlessly for the next 5 years.

Is this where it starts? Where the tightening of security and the questioning of human rights begins?

If you haven't read The Handmaid's Tale, I implore you to read it.
If you're not the reading kind, then watch the new TV series. It's right here on All 4. 

And if you don't want to read it or watch it because you've heard it described as "feminist" or a "woman's story", then I roll my eyes at you so hard they fall out of their sockets, roll down the drain, into the sewer system and end up in a reservoir so pretty and clean I that I can't believe my eyes... 

The Handmaid's Tale is a story about the dismantling of democracy, of the ripping away of civil liberties and human rights. Yes of the society we've built, which I'm not always in favour of, but we're creating equality too. (slowly)
It tackles the stigma that gay people face, the idea that they are 'unnatural'. 
And the latest episode even includes FGM, not originally in the book, but that women and girls across the world face - with an estimated 137,000 in England and Wales. 

I hold my hands up and say I'm a hypocrite. I dismiss things for being too "girly", too "manly". These are stereotypes of behaviours that I have had drilled into me from a young age that I need to undo. 
There is really only one kind of behaviour - "human".

We all deserve equal opportunities, regardless of age, race, religion, ethnicity, ability, sexuality, or gender.

We have the opportunity right now to stand up and oppose the erosion of human rights. 

No Freedom Til We're Equal

Yesterday my phone died when I was coming back from Central London. I had no music. I had to listen to the world. I had no choice.

And on the train home I was across the aisle from a young mum and her son. Her phone rang and she proceeded to tell her father that she had no money. Only £60 in the bank. And the Bright House money was going out on Friday and two of her son's friends were having birthdays this weekend and it was her son's birthday this week and she still needed to get everything for him but how was she going to pay for it all?

What I'm about to say is not a boast, I am not trying to lord anything over anyone. But I have never had to worry about money. Not really. I live with my dad, and I don't pay rent. When I tried to pay rent to my dad, he told me to set up a savings account and pay my "rent" into there every month. So I was paying my rent to myself. I think my dad just wanted me to save more money so I'd be out of the house quicker. At university my student loan never covered my accommodation, because my family had been assessed and it was concluded they could help me out financially. Which they had to. I still worked, but because I wanted to, not because I had to.

I'm not getting out of this house anytime soon, not least because I'm going to Australia for a year and by the time I come back my savings will probably be decimated.

So to hear this woman's fears about paying for things, to hear that she might genuinely struggle to give her son the birthday he wanted, it made me feel uncomfortable.

And that's my understanding of having privilege. When someone elses experience is not equal to yours, and it makes you uncomfortable. It should make you uncomfortable, because only then can you understand it, accept it, and if you can, make steps to correct it. Some shy away from that uncomfortable feeling, and make excuses for it.
I can't change that I was born into a family that is not rich, but is not poor.

I also can't change the fact that I am white. It is frequently noted that the mainstream feminism, the "third wave" is not very diverse. Feminism as a movement has more often than not focused on the experiences and disadvantages that white women suffer. And that is not because the movement is being racist. But because the experiences and disadvantages suffered by white women are not always strictly the same as those suffered by women of colour, and the women propelled forward to lead the movement are frequently white.
That is also privilege.

So now I have recognised that I am privileged in being not-poor and white, what can I do about it?

I can read. I can listen. I can take in what other people's experiences are. I can't change my skin colour or roots but I can learn about other people's roots. I can learn about their lives as experienced because of their skin colour. I have to continue to challenge my own preconceptions - and I do have them, I'm not denying that - of race, sex, age, ability, class, and in challenging my own I can learn to challenge others too. I don't want to be blind to the differences between myself and others. We need to deconstruct the stereotypes, and tear them down piece by piece. Stereotypes of Northerners, Southerners. Stereotypes of old and young. Stereotypes of nationality, or religion. Stereotypes of race. Stereotypes of gender.

Human rights for everybody. I want to be uncomfortable, if it means I become a better person.