Islamic groups & Regimes

• Atwood includes echoes of some extreme Islamic societies and fundamentalist groups, who want strict Islamic rules imposed universally.
• These groups include women being forced to dress modestly, the segregation of sexes, and a ban on dancing.
• A notable group is the Taliban, which came into power in Afghanistan 10 years after the publications of THT.
• The Taliban imposes rules such as women being forced to dress extremely modestly, including wearing a burka/head-to-toe veil.
• The Taliban also refuses to let girls in education.
• The Taliban enforces intense brutal punishments, including amputations and public stoning for crimes that are considered to break the Sariha law.
• In Suda and Saudia Arabia, Sariha law states that women cannot drive and must be escorted by a male relative.
• Gilead reflects these views in many ways, having women having set dress codes depending on their fertility/role in Gilead.
• Punishments such as flogging and amputation are still in use in Suda and Saudia Arabia .Public deaths and punishments are seen in Gilead, such as the Particution and how Offred states that the punishment for reading is ‘only a hand cut off’.
• Atwood’s feminism opposes greatly to these views during her world tour to Afghanistan in 1978.
• Atwood was aware that unpopular ideologies could be used as scapegoats, and it was not as easy as viewing all Taliban followers as responsible for all terrorist attacks. Shown in Offred's realisation that when things were blown up 'you couldn't even be sure who was doing it' could have been the army, to justify the computer searches and the other ones, the door-to-doors'.