Fertility rates have been dropping, and in some countries, like the US, they have dropped below the level needed to replace the population. So the concern is if they keep dropping, then will we end up creating a society like in The Handmaid's Tale? It seems possible as this book is "at once a scathing satire, dire warning, and tour de force" (taken from the summary on the back cover of my book). Would our society turn to the use of Handmaids if birth and fertility rates decline even further?
I think we would hope that we as a society have progressed enough to realize that we shouldn't treat women in this way, but have we? There is still fear that we haven't done enough to prevent this and that we would be easily overpowered and be forced to like in a society like the Republic of Gilead.
On the other hand, maybe we have and there would be enough push back to make sure we would find an alternate solution.
What would that solution be though? As much as Brave New World sounds like a terrible society, there are some elements that might be useful. The way they create humans in a kind of test-tube baby way and a conveyor belt that replaces gestation might be a solution for declining births and fertility rates. The other thing that BNW did is they figured out a way to get an egg to keep multiplying to create a bunch of twins. With this method you don't have to worry about if you will get pregnant or not because they fertilize the eggs outside of the body. You also don't have to care about will there be a miscarriage or a still birth or a birth defect because they have the system perfected. And with the egg dividing you can make multiple babies which would really help birth rates rise. Also, you wouldn't have to do the Ceremony once a month to potentially get pregnant. Clearly, Offred doesn't want to be a part of the Ceremony, she is more forced to (even though she said she made the choice to be a Handmaid). Also being pregnant kinda sucks so not having to do that is pretty fun.
The issue with this is that using BNW's baby-making method, it might lead society to become BNW. Then instead of living in dystopian The Handmaid's Tale, you live in dystopian Brave New World. What's better - the World State or the Republic of Gilead?
I don't think declining birth rates are necessarily a problem right now, as the population is still increasing pretty steadily and lifespans are still increasing. Overpopulation is actually becoming an issue in a lot of countries. Declining birth rates is mainly a thing in the middle class and above of first world countries, and since that's such a small portion of the population of the world, declining birth rates don't really seem like a problem. However, you raise an interesting question. I think Brave New World is probably a better world to live in as both are devoid of love, but one is much more violent and aggressive than the other. In Brave New World, if you're different, you move to a different place. In Handmaid's Tale, if you're different, you are attacked. Also, Brave New World is at least less sexist than Handmaid's tale.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I feel that the society of the Handmaid's Tale would be worse to live in. It is clearly dystopian, and everyone is suppressed. Furthermore, it seems that emotion is rather...unnecessary. Although in BNW emotion is also pretty unnecessary, unless it is plain old happiness, the difference would be that in a BNW-esque society, if complete with soma, people would not realize how monotonous and fake their life actually was.
ReplyDeleteI would also hope that we've progressed enough as a society to not end up in a situation like Gilead if we were to suffer from declining birth rates, however I'm also not completely sure what would happen. We would think and hope that our society would not turn into a society like Gilead, however in extreme circumstances, I would not be surprised if people threw away their moral ideals and did whatever they had to to solve the issue. I would doubt that it would ever reach the extreme of the society in the Handmaid's Tale, however I would not put it past our society to create a system that would be immoral and disadvantageous to a certain party.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree about birth rates declining, I don't think they are doing so drastically enough for society to turn into something like that of Gilead's. But this was definitely thought provoking -- I personally think Brave New World, as flawed and unsettling as it was, would be a much better place than the Republic of Gilead. Brave New World is less oppressive and violent, and there are ways to feel happier and at ease like taking Soma. Gilead is just cruel and depressing
ReplyDeleteI don't think we would end up in a possible Gilead or BNW. I feel like the US government is pretty secular right now and it would take significant religious movements coordinated with governmental action to orchestrate a change that large(and there would be pushback, I hope). BNW is,in my opinion, the better society to live in because women are less objectified (although one could argue that certain classes are objectified) and soma blocks out most of the horrible parts of the society. However, maybe I would feel differently if I had read an account of BNW from John or one of the other native's perspective.
ReplyDeleteBringing BNW into the equation is interesting because in vitro fertilization is a big thing right now and though we still do need mothers to go through pregnancy (unlike BNW), we're probably not far off in the grand scheme of things of simply growing babies outside of a womb. Even thinking about what would happen in Gilead if in vitro technology was as widely available as it is now is interesting. It would be expensive, so would only the higher class be able to utilize it? Would nearly any woman have a shot at a healthy baby, or only those as "fertile" as the handmaids? Would it be enough to sustain the population? Would the non-intimacy of the procedure get rid of the need for the ceremonies, or would the ceremonies continue for spiritual reasons? I think the technology was invented in the 70s, but I'm curious if it was a big enough thing at that point to ever be mentioned in the book.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I think I'd much rather live in BNW because it's pretty settled in, and only "outsiders" are unhappy. Gilead, on the other hand, is new and in total turmoil, and it's bad for everybody (especially women).
I mean I don't really see us needing to drastically increase our population anytime soon. Sure, birth rates are going down, but people are also living to be older, and with the way that medicine is continuing to advance rapidly, I could see us pushing the average life expectancy up and up over the next ten years. If we did have to artificially boost our birth rate, I feel like the BNW test-tube style is way, way more likely. After all, that is already possible, and I can't imagine the kind of backlash that would occur if the government tried to force women to have babies. In my opinion, no one in their right mind would try to make the world look like the handmaid's tale.
ReplyDeleteConsidering whether either of these societies is a plausible future for our own world is a really interesting thing to think about. I think that even with our current declining fertility rate, it would be a really long time before we start to heavily rely on other methods of sustaining our population. If I had to choose one society which is most plausible to actually occur in our future, I would say BNW simply because of the direction that technology seems to be heading.
ReplyDeleteI think you pose a really interesting situation for the future of our society. However, I do think we are a long ways away from becoming a society that resembles the New World or the Republic of Gilead. That said, I do think living in the New World would be better than the Republic of Gilead. In Handmaid's Tale, it seems as if lots of people don't like their status in society but can't do anything about it and are forced to live while repressing their feelings and their memories of the past. It's especially hard to live when you have memories of a happy past but know that that is not possible anymore. In BNW, even though people might be unhappy at times, they don't really feel it because they have Soma to create a state of constant happiness.
ReplyDeleteAlthough the society in BNW has many faults, I would rather live in that society than in the one described in The Handmaid's Tale. What the handmaids are forced to do is utterly disgusting to me.
ReplyDeleteThe role of handmaids mildly reminded me of the role of birthmothers in The Giver since they are both responsible for providing children for the society. Even though I was a little uncomfortable with the idea of birthmothers, I think being a handmaid would be much worse since they have to go through "the ceremony" repeatedly and are treated as objects that are only valued for their ability to bear children.
A lot of people are saying that they'd rather live in BNW's World State than Gilead, and I agree, but from an outside perspective, BNW freaks me out a LOT more. That's probably because of the hopelessness. Gilead is more violent, but it also has rebellions and pockets of freedom. Gilead itself is relatively small and concentrated. There's still hope that things can turn around. BNW, on the other hand, is so all-powerful that nothing will ever change. If I had to choose where I'd go, I'd go to the BNW society. But if I were deciding where someone else would go, I'd at least consider Gilead, just because I, like Offred does with her family, can at least pretend that things got better for them.
ReplyDeleteI would also rather live in BNW, but I see your point about living in Gilead since there is at least a hope of escaping. I also thought about if I would rather be a Martha (not a wife, commander, or handmaid) than live in BNW; but I still went with BNW because I would not be able to hand the whole handmaid situation in Gilead.
DeleteI think the terrifying part of Gilead that not a lot of comments are mentioning is that Atwood didn't put anything in the book that hasn't happened to women before in some society. Even "civilized people" are capable of this, and in the perfect storm of conditions it would not be a stretch for America to return to that oppressive treatment of women.
ReplyDeleteSo, yes, I'd rather live in BNW. Neither is great, and I think if America does have a birthrate apocalypse we would probably end up somewhere in between-- maybe like Bridget said, there would still be a system of child-bearers? But the conditions in Handmaid's Tale are kind of wacky and not well-defined (hopefully we understand soon why the fertility worked out like that).
Nice post Hadoodie :) Both societies are very disturbing to read, and living in them would be a whole other horror. Tbh the the idea of creating babies in tubes doesn't sound very appealing to me, soo hopefully if birth rates become a bigger problem in our future, we are able to find a better solution. And we should rememeber that declining birth rates is intertwined with a whole bunch of other things, like increased war and distress in the world. So if we could solve those issues, maybe birth rates wouldn't be an issue.
ReplyDeleteI think the Brave New World population replenishing measure is far better than Gilead, but the problem arises in how to distribute the children, Do you assign the babies foster parents or have some brave new world style government control minus the baby torture? essentially I think the system of Brave New World could be improved to be way better than the system Gilead has in place could ever be
ReplyDeleteIf I was forced to choose between the 2, I would probably choose to go with Brave New World. In the handmaids tale, everything just seems very depressing, the majority of the people are unhappy, and the government seems to be in complete control. While the government is the same in BNW, at least people are happy. I think I would much rather be happy, not knowing anything and living a "content" life than knowing I had lost all my freedoms, and that I was constantly being watched.
ReplyDeleteWow, I never thought about how the societies created in BNW and the Handmaiden tale's are the result of declining birthrates and war because they seemed so different. To answer your question if I had to live in either society I would choose BNW's system because of the illusion of freedom it affords people. In addition, I would probably end up dead in Gilead because I don't fit into their idea of an ideal race. However, if I were asked which society I would prefer to exist in the world I would say Gilead because history has shown that blatantly oppressive and violent police states are eventually overthrown by a resistance movement. I think that if our world were to embrace BNW's system there would be no going back because human nature itself has been changed.
ReplyDeleteI think that brave new worlds system of "building" babies is not too crazy. Even today children are being cultured outside of the womb for scientific testing so I feel like it's feasible to have a system like Brave New World. I think the problem with BNWs system is that it disregards the system of attachment and family. What if you could culture babies as such but attach them to a family? Would that be more "acceptable" than the BNWs system? I think that the concept of culturing babies is interesting and could have potential benefits should it be used properly
ReplyDeleteI think that in Brave New World the point of the Bokanovsky process is efficiency. They are trying to very specific about the genetic makeup of the people that enter their society. However in the Handmaid's Tale I think the Ceremony is more about power and showing the hierarchy in that society versus actual reproduction. They mention in the book that men are also infertile although they aren't tested. It also implies that ultrasound machines have been banned which is unusually considering how many babies have birth defects. The Ceremony is used to show that Commanders>Wives>Handmaids basically.
ReplyDelete-Anna Ondrejckova
I would like to believe that there is a balance, we can somewhat artificially make babies without giving them diseases and telling them their self worth in their sleep.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that the artificial/automated reproduction of BNW could be achievable without converting society into the World State, and just generally without making excessive sacrifices at all. Even if I had to choose between the World State and the Republic of Gilead, I would still go with the World State. The standard of living seems higher, society seems much more egalitarian, and happiness appears to be much more widespread (even if it is usually artificial).
ReplyDeleteThe Brave New World's process of making thousands of identical babies might seem insane at first. Upon further inspection, while it's still crazy, the process came off as pretty efficient. Personally, I would much rather prefer the World State over the Republic of Gilead when considering fertility and reproduction customs. The balance between the two would honestly be the most ideal.
ReplyDeleteCrazily, Nazi Germany did something similar in an attempt to create an all-white human race. Although they didn't do it scientifically, the idea of creating essentially clones was the same. Note that that happened AFTER Brave New World was written as well. It seems Huxley was a fantastic predictor.
ReplyDeleteI would probably choose BNW's method but with a more human emotion and attachment involved in the process and not too much emphasis on particular genetic make up. Currently, there are scientific methods already in place to help infertile couples conceive (in fact, the first test tube baby created by IVF just turned 40 last year!). I agree with DJ that Huxley was a great predictor of future.
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