Entry 65: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby

In the 1890s, when Kate Chopin wrote “A Pair of Silk Stockings,” women could not vote, were not financially independent, and had few opportunities for education or employment. Women’s rights activists were beginning to seek social justice, but change was slow. As you read Chopin’s story, what differences do you notice between the lives of women then and now. What connections can you make between the lives of women then and those of women in The Handmaid’s Tale? Do you think that things could ever change back to the way they were before?

• The main difference between the women then and the women in the present day is the difference in the amount of freedom. Women before didn't have the freedom to do what they want. Instead, they were limited by certain unwritten rules, and if they broke these rules, then they would be viewed as scandals and never be respected again in society. Women nowadays, however, have more rights and more property, even though only certain places have excessively more compared to before.
• The connection between the lives of the women then and those women in the Handmaid's Tale is that both of these groups are limited; they don't have any freedom. Both of these groups are oppressed by the society that they inhabit in, as well as by their respective cultures, traditions, and rules and the expectations of others from and within their cultures. These groups also have certain very specific obligations. For example, the women living in the time of Kate Chopin had the responsibilities of a housewife, and they have to take care of the house and the children. The women in the Handmaid's Tale had the obligation of being housewives as well, and the handmaids have obligations to be surrogate mothers to couples who couldn't bear children. Another important factor is that these obligations are not those that the majority of women wish to comply with, deep inside them.