Women in Dystopian Politics

📋 Course Outline

1. Atwood and the rise of Gilead
2. Fiction rooted in reality
3. Huxley and political warning
4. Female body as political battleground
5. Barbara Kruger and abortion politics
6. Erasing women from history
7. Silence as political erasure

📖 1. Atwood and the rise of Gilead

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• The Handmaid's Tale : Dystopian novel set in a near-future America called Gilead.
• Gilead : Totalitarian state where women have lost rights and their bodies belong to the state.
• Margaret Atwood : Author who wrote the novel in 1984 while watching political and cultural power shifts.

📝 Essential Points

• Atwood wrote The Handmaid's Tale in 1984 during the Cold War.
• The narrator’s premise is a near-future America where women’s bodies are governed by the state.
• The religious right was portrayed as gaining power in America as Atwood wrote, and she worried about it.

💡 Memory Hook

Cold War + Berlin Wall → Atwood watches power tighten → Gilead emerges.

📖 2. Fiction rooted in reality

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Atwood's New York Times essay : Atwood’s March 2017 New York Times text explaining her rule for writing the novel.
• Rule for writing the novel : Atwood’s self-imposed method that treats Gilead as assembled from already existing real practices.
• Religion as a tool of power : Political use of religion to justify oppression rather than religion itself.

📝 Essential Points