Evelyn M: A Possibly Hot Take — probably just mildly spicy

Hello, I have returned to the blog after my two week long struggle with google after they thought I was stealing my own identity and locked me out of my gmail account — so now I have a new one!

Fun fact: 3 years ago, someone in the US government made a clerical mistake and filed that my stepmother Tiffany was DEAD. So we suddenly got all of these forms to fill out and her social security number was cancelled etc., all because she was legally considered dead. Classic pranks!

Anyway, this will be a very rambling blog post on modern feminism in literature, specifically as seen through dystopian feminist books. I believe I first read The Handmaid's Tale (published in 1985) when I was about 14 or 15, and I was like HOLY MOLEY! At that point in my life, my personal introduction to women's issues/rights and feminism in general was just beginning, so reading that book was almost like an outsider looking in. I found it powerful and shocking and waved it around to anyone who would listen.

Now, however, at the ancient age of 21, I find reading books of the same vein as The Handmaid's Tale absolutely exhausting — and they just keep coming out!! From The Power, to The Women's War to The Water Cure, to VOX, all of these novels deal with gender politics in a violent and dystopian way. As a young woman, I am ACUTELY aware of how much sexism sucks each and every day and feel so TIRED when I have to read fiction about it too.

I'm tired of reading books like this!!! I think we've discussed escapism through literature before, and this type of writing to me is just the opposite. It's literally painful for me to read through yet another dystopian society (that is way too familiar to our own) of violence against women. Frankly I just have lost sight of the value that these books bring to literature. That's all I have to say, I'm gonna go watch Gilmore Girls.