Sunday’s Philadelphia Inquirer featured a piece
on Hulu’s hit adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s novel “The Handmaid’s Tale”. The series describes a rigid authoritarian
regime known as the Republic of Gilead (no relation to the pharmaceutical
giant) controlled by male religious extremists following a coup d'etat against the United States government.
In this reactionary patriarchal society in which laws and
customs are based on a very literal, fundamentalist interpretation of the
Christian Bible, women have no rights - to education, employment, property, political
position or their own bodies. Fear and
brutality are used to maintain power.
Only a lucky few escape to Canada.
Agonizingly depressing, Gilead is reminiscent of other
societies in the world where women and minorities are severely oppressed. But can it easily be dismissed as inconceivable
in a US of the future? Given the current
ideological divide in our country, the concentration of wealth and power in a small
segment of the population, and a strongman president who cannot tolerate being
challenged, could our basic freedoms one day potentially be in serious jeopardy?
History warns us never to assume “it could never happen
here”. So,
is it time to pack for Canada … while we still can?
Judith
Wolf, MD
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