Under His Eye...

timing is everything in life...just ask Margaret Atwood and her creation The Handmaid's Tale...I admit I am late to the Hulu series...binging through Season Two as I type...but as both a reader, and writer, I was not late to the game when the book was released in the mid-80's...a fictional...some said science fictional look at life in 2005...gee, what could have been her inspiration...the good times of Thatcher and Reagan?...the book, revered, dismissed and sometimes banned left more than a little food for thought...and now, a few days shy of 61, sometimes it is hard to fathom how much things have changed for women...and not...for me...as a girl in the 60's heading off to school...having to wear pants under my dress on cold days, then remove before class started...I look at the credit cards in my wallet...it wasn't until the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 that women could get a credit card without the co-signature of a husband or male family member...Mondale takes Geraldine Ferraro on the ticket in 1984...McCain takes Sarah Palin in 2008...and now Kamala Harris...always a bridesmaid in my time...maybe not in the future...back to Handmaid's Tale...the series has chosen to modernize it to reflect our times...interracial couples...gay couples...Atwood was more blunt about what would happen to people of color in her Gilead...but the red cloaks remain...the simmering anger and fear when watching are elicited...in the U.S. today birthrates are declining...reasons range from  economics... choice...environment's possible influence on fertility (something to ponder on Earth Day)...and that, my friends, is one statistic that creates underlying panic in some circles...circles with clout and money...and so I continue to binge and watch Elizabeth Moss and clan...and note painful similarities to changing mores and laws...and wonder...why the hell I chose to watch this at the second year marker of this endless pandemic...but as much as I'd rather watch a repeat of SVU I find I cannot look away...episode after episode...under his eye...