Missing the point? Everything wrong about The Handmaid's Sale.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a genius well-crafted piece of work written to shed light on the ill treatment of women. This best-selling science-fiction book, which was published in 1985, narrates the story of a dystopian society where authorities manipulate fertile women to have babies for elite couples that are unable to. The book parallels the real life difficulties of women who don’t have say in controlling their own life. With the ever-growing feminist movement, the past 100 years have been a continuous realization of unnoticed discrimination against women, the blooming of equal rights and a step forward towards a visionary society. As the Daily Telegraph claims this work to be “Compulsively readable”, this novel have touched many from young people studying the bold lines in school to critics around the world reading between them.

An interesting parallel emerged after this year’s Halloween season. A Handmaid’s Tale related costume has been circulating the screens and major backlash stroke. The costumes’ inappropriate appeal is one that contrasts the main message of the novel: the objectification of women. Such a costume derails the might in Atwood’s words as she brings into attention the mistreatment of women and ignorance of such prejudice. Although the company that had the costume up on their page will no longer sell it, the description on the attire had read: “An upsetting dystopian future has emerged where women no longer have a say. However, we say be bold and speak your mind in this exclusive Brave Red Maiden costume." 

It is nevertheless satisfying knowing that social media like Twitter and Instagram have a major role in identifying capitalistic tendencies of profiting from pure ideas. Despite the many cons, online communities keep morality in check as they figured Margaret Atwood’s words and messages are too important to be reduced into a simple cloth.