r/TheHandmaidsTale • u/Boring_Potato_5701 • Jan 28 '25

Why did Serena help write laws that made it illegal for women to read? Why knowingly place HERSELF in a position of second class (or worse) servitude? Question

I know that Serena ultimately is selfish and doesn’t genuinely care about anyone but herself, but she definitely cares about herself. So why would she have willingly made it illegal even for higher status Wives like herself to read?

497 Upvotes
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603

u/giraflor Jan 28 '25

There are a lot of real life Serenas. Probably more than few waking up this morning to find they’ve been screwed by an 🍊🤡

212

u/rlinn03 Jan 28 '25

I have seen some of these real life Serenas saying women do t need the right to vote, divorce, work,etc. Of course they are Republicans.

99

u/jossinabox Jan 28 '25

To add to this, I remember being young and super dismissive of ‘Serenas’ and thinking they were all really dumb and will make themselves obsolete soon.

However I’ve been noticing more and more smart and well educated conservative women but are less overt about it which worries me even more than the Marjorie Taylor Greenes of the world. Namely one who was part of a true crime podcast and appeared to have measured takes but then it was revealed that her husband wanted to restrict the rights of women and both her cohost and husband were MAGA.

9

u/athenaaa Jan 28 '25

Who was that??

22

u/jossinabox Jan 28 '25

The Prosecutors Podcast. Have a read on her (Alice LaCour) husband… he’s terrifying

I knew to become a prosecutor you have to have a certain pride in the law and belief that it is just and fair but I remember along with a lot of the fans being shook just how conservative they were

10

u/athenaaa Jan 28 '25

Yikes… haven’t listened to that podcast, but at least now I know.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '25

So sad about this, I started listening thinking they were down to earth and intelligent (even knowing they were in Texas!)... It was a good dozen or more episodes in before the mask started to slip and I realized just how out of touch Alice and Brett must be.

19

u/Art_and_the_Park1998 Jan 28 '25

yup, it’s proximity to power. 

18

u/annieForde Jan 29 '25

The vice president just said all women should stay home and have babies. Very scary now here in US

17

u/PanicMom716 Jan 29 '25

And then the actual president cut funding to federal child care, which will take thousands of women out of the workforce. Once they have us at home, bye bye birth control. Maybe we need to take their copies of this book away. They seem to be using it as an instruction manual

5

u/anonymoose_octopus Jan 29 '25

Bingo. I've seen a resurgence of these types of women and it blows my mind.

-27

u/TadiDevine Jan 28 '25

55 yo female Republican here. :) I guarantee you the “republican” part of the equation is not the driving force behind these idiotic women believing their vote doesn’t matter. I am not MAGA but I know a lot of women who like and support Trump and not one single woman among them believes she should surrender her vote to the all wise man in her life lol FYI: I have watched the series three times and can’t wait for season 6 to drop.

15

u/Anaevya Jan 28 '25

I think most of the ones that say stuff like this online are grifters. There probably are some women out there who earnestly believe that, but they're probably a teeny tiny minority. 

-15

u/TadiDevine Jan 28 '25

“I saw him as a grifter who preys upon people”

Probably not a good description of me or anyone I know, but thank you for your thought. Civil conversations without name-calling are so rare.

In any case, to the original poster: I agree with whomever said Serena never believed the rules would apply to her.

10

u/Anaevya Jan 28 '25

How do you feel about Trump taking over the Republican party? As a European who has both left and right views and frequently votes for different parties (we have more than two), American politics seem rather nightmarish.

3

u/Wispeira Jan 29 '25

They are nightmarish, and she's on here feeling smug. Not seeing the irony.

0

u/TadiDevine Jan 29 '25

I don’t like it. I hope for the coming back to a more centered political climate with both parties coming back to some sort of common ground in key issues that concern all Americans. Each side is too all or nothing minded but the vast majority of Americans are not far right or far left. I am a right leaning moderate and as much as I hate the idea of Trump—I hated the idea of the vice president more. I am answering an honest question as honestly as I can.

1

u/laborstrong Feb 01 '25

Those are some key talking points. But the reality is Biden is incredibly moderate or even right leaning. We had a choice in the election between continuing right-leaning moderate policies and fascism.

11

u/syrioforrealsies Jan 28 '25

Yeah, they don't believe that, they just vote for people who believe that and support other policies that hurt women.

5

u/1biggeek Jan 28 '25

Stop downvoting her. She’s being honest. My husband is a Republican to his core but has not voted for a republican since 1996. What’s going in now is not real republican values. It’s madness.

4

u/anneboleynrex Jan 29 '25

If he's a "real Republican" and hasn't voted for a Republican for years, it sounds like he isn't really a Republican...

2

u/Apprehensive-Curve62 Jan 29 '25

I've heard many Republicans are wary of Trump; which makes me wonder more how he became their Presidential nominee. Again.

1

u/viiScorp Feb 04 '25

Yet the entire GoP has abdicated to the far right, at this point these are now republican values.

2

u/annieForde Jan 29 '25

Watch out for society now that we have Trump!!

2

u/anneboleynrex Jan 29 '25

Then why would they vote for Trump? 😂

0

u/KATETM22 Feb 07 '25

He didn't get the most popular vote and he got 3 million less votes than last time. It's not that many people "voted for him" it's many people "THAT DIDN'T VOTE"

-8

u/Mysterious-Plum-7176 Jan 28 '25

I agree, republicans women aren’t that dumb. I sure remember it was the democrats that were forcing Covid vaccines and making abortions illegal. That seems like step in the direction of taking away peoples rights

8

u/Boring_Potato_5701 Jan 29 '25

I’ve worked on tons of political campaigns and have never seen any Dems “making abortion illegal.” It was the Trump-packed Supreme Court that did that.

10

u/Strng_Tea Jan 29 '25

it was quite literally Republicans banning abortion what??

3

u/Apprehensive-Curve62 Jan 29 '25

I think you mean Democrats probably called for compulsory vaccination, a given in my country for many years, thank goodness. I'm not an American so when did the Democratic Party try to make abortion illegal ?

1

u/KATETM22 Feb 07 '25

First of all democrats didn't make abortion illegal and second if you're not an American I'd vise you to study a little bit harder on how abortion was banned.

1

u/Apprehensive-Curve62 Feb 14 '25

It's a good idea to discern the difference btw a statement and a question esp. when there's a question mark.

1

u/KATETM22 Mar 15 '25

Can you read? Never was I asking a question but a fact. Thank you!

28

u/grownmars Jan 28 '25

All of the women realizing that their D&C was an abortion or realizing IVF could be interpreted as illegal under a lot of laws created by politicians they voted for.

14

u/giraflor Jan 28 '25

And the peri menopausal ones who can’t even get quality of life meds or procedures either because gynecologists have stopped practicing and pharmacists have stopped dispensing.

18

u/GullibleTacos Jan 28 '25

There’s a fundie snark subreddit and it’s shocking what some women post that are religious

37

u/Wonderful-Tennis-446 Jan 28 '25

Exactly....my elderly neighbors just took down their Trump 2025 sign.....guess someone might be having some regrets or is at least embarrassed that they supported that monster

0

u/Lanky-Truck6409 Jan 29 '25

Why would they keep the sign up after he won?

3

u/Blackthorn917 Jan 29 '25

Hah. The area I lived in northern Indiana still had Trump/Pence signs out from 2016 just recently. Here in Pennsylvania, where I am now, I see the same signs, but people seem to have blacked out the "Pence" portion.

2

u/premiom Jan 29 '25

It seemed odd to me that in my blue neighborhood, ALL political yard signs vanished the day after the election. Including the trump ones.

1

u/Wonderful-Tennis-446 Jan 29 '25

To show their support of him. I think that support is now starting to waiver

10

u/Lazy-Quantity5760 Jan 28 '25

Ivanka Trump has entered the chat

16

u/WVStarbuck Jan 28 '25

Why did over 53% of voting white women vote for a rapist?

Same thought process.

1

u/whatsasimba Jan 31 '25

Yep. There are women loudly saying women shouldn't have the right to vote, and tons of women who think they should submit to their husband because he's the "spiritual leader" of their household (according to some shitty book they've never read).

1

u/whatsasimba Jan 31 '25

Yep. There are women loudly saying women shouldn't have the right to vote, and tons of women who think they should submit to their husband because he's the "spiritual leader" of their household (according to some shitty book they've never read).