Strength and the thought of strength

In the article, "If Men Could Menstruate" there is a lot of emphasis on the idea that men take some physical aspect of themselves and try to turn it into a positive utensil. One thought that this brought into my head is connected with sports in our school. It is very interesting to see that in our school, there are far more boys that girls doing sports of all kinds. There is a very small group of girls who are "intense" enough to do sports and all of them seem to go into the same two or three sports. It is sad to see that most of them are turning away from running however. There is a strikingly low commitment to running from our school's female population. Track and Field has so few girls that our teammates are being stretched to do far more events than is fair to the average hard working human being. Although in the article, men tend to overemphasize their own power, on Track and Field, the equality between men and women stands true as both the girls and boys on track work just as hard and work together on races and practices. No one asserts control over the others, but instead we try to teach each other with mutual respect given to each individual. The only way in which the equality does not exist between the genders is with numbers. The number of females at ASL who are willing to do Track and Field are so low that the boys half of the team almost triples it in number. I think that there either is some lack of confidence for a lot of girls in our schools to try these sports, or some strand of laziness. There is absolutely no reason that the girls at our school cannot do running. In fact, there is no reason that anyone in the whole world cannot do running unless they have some biological defect that keeps them from running. As human beings we are meant to run and so we should all embrace the thing we were biologically created for together and in equal numbers if we can possibly do so. I think that many more girls should do running and stop being afraid of the supposed "pain" and just go and try it. Running is not pain. It is fun. 

Identity

From the past reading, we find out that Ofglen, the one that was Offred's friend, has dissapeared (we find out very soon that she is dead), and Offred says that she never knew the Ofglen's real name. Now the new Ofglen is there and Offred comments on how hard it is to find someone in "a sea of names" (295). This brought to light a fact that I hadn't thought of since the beginning of the book. We had a discussion in class about whether or not the "Of" part of the Handmaid names were referring to the fact that they were owned by whoever's name followed the "Of." If this is the case, then this is not a name, but a label to be placed on an item so that one does not lose it. This brought into question what is identity here? It seems that as long as the Handmaids live with their respective commanders, they have no real identity other than that they can be identified as this commander's handmaid. The very last sentence of the book, however, cleared some of this up for me. It reads, "And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light" (307). I thought that this statement drew a perfect line from the loss of identity to the gaining of it. We don't know what happens to Offred after she goes into the black van, but we do know that it could be positive for her. It might be that if the handmaids, having been taught not to have an identity, start to regain their old sense of self, they are sent away in the black van. It is a bit sad to think that in this supposedly futuristic world, people no longer have an identity, that there is no place for identity in our world of tomorrow. And that the only place for individuality and identity in the world of tomorrow is outside that world, in the land of the outcasts. So, to be free, to be an individual is now to be an outcast?

What it is to be human (Nature and Balance III)

In the past week's reading, I finally found one sentence in The Handmaid's Tale that truly stood out to me more than the rest. The commander, while with Offred in the club says, "But everyone's human, after all" (248). He states this in response to Offred's questioning about the club and its legality. I enjoyed reading this statement because it was the first time we ever saw the commander say something truly meaningful for our lives as well. It was the first time I saw a glimpse of a man with intelligence in this future apocalypse world. As I read this statement, I thought of what the commander could have meant. He could mean that humans, by nature, need to live without restriction, that we are not meant to live in a cage, as we are animals. He could have meant that freedom is a human's only choice, and so disobeying laws was the only way someone could feel  they were still human. Perhaps it was too much for me to expect of the commander. He goes on to state that "Nature demands variety, for men. It stands to reason, its part of the procreational strategy. It's Nature's plan" (249). Now I know that he is going to say something about women and how they are some sort of variety for men or something close to that. I was disappointed. The fact that he said "Nature's plan" also irritated me because in a previous Blog-post, I had stated that nature created the balance between man and woman and he has taken that statement and distorted it to make it seem that nature has created woman for man. He continues to say, "Women know that instinctively. why did they buy so many different clothes, in the old days? To trick the men into thinking they were several different women. A new one each day" (249). This is possibly the worst statement in the book so far. The commander has essentially stated that by nature's law, women are toys for men to play with. The men buy new toys when they get bored with the old ones. I think he has misunderstood nature's laws because he is used to living in this future world where they do not teach what nature had once created, and what we had forgotten. He also is completely ignorant of the rules of balance. Balance is non-existent in this world, this apocalypse. This is why this world, I believe, will fall apart, if it isn't falling apart already.