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More than half of adults think the current political climate closely mirrors the dystopian horrors featured in The Handmaid’s Tale, new research has found.
Channel 4’s hit dystopian television series – adapted from Margaret Atwood’s best-selling 1985 novel about a totalitarian society, Gilead, ruled by a fundamentalist regime that sees certain women reduced to state property for the pure reason of birthing a child for a wealthy family – returned for its sixth and final season last week.
The show, led by Elisabeth Moss, who plays June Osborne a former Handmaid turned revolutionary, premiered in April 2017, months after President Donald Trump took office for the first time and returned for its concluding season to a backdrop of state-level abortion bans in the US.
Some 56 per cent of Britons think modern society reflects the challenges faced by women in The Handmaid’s Tale, while a further 47 per cent don’t believe women’s rights are being protected in today’s political climate, according to research commissioned by Channel 4.
Additionally, six in ten (59 per cent) of 1,5000 adults surveyed said that women’s rights have not progressed as expected by 2025, citing Trump’s presidency, rising levels of violence against women, and misogynistic online rhetoric as cause for their concern about the state of society.
This January, a government strategy to stop violence against women and girls set up in the wake of the killings of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa was dubbed as a failure.
A watchdog determined that victims have not had improved outcomes with an “epidemic” of violence spiralling out of control.
VAWG has spiralled into a “national emergency” in the UK with more than 1 million violent crimes against women and girls recorded by police in 2022/23 accounting for just under 20 per cent of all police-recorded crime excluding fraud in England and Wales.
Amber Kirby, Director of Marketing at Channel 4 said the final season of The Handmaid’s Tale is intended to be a “rallying cry against oppression” that creators hope “opens up vital conversations about the real-life challenges all women face today.”
The Handmaid’s Tale showrunners previously expressed concern about the current state of America, saying that “women in our country have fewer rights now than when we started production in 2016”.
Speaking to ex-CNN reporter Oliver Darcy for his Status newsletter, showrunner Eric Tuchman admitted: “No, I don’t think any of us could have predicted how closely the show would maintain its relevance and continue to reflect real events.”
He continued: “The series has been called a cautionary tale about what can happen when power is abused and people’s rights and freedoms are stripped away, But that warning was ignored, apparently, by the majority of voters, and Roe v Wade was overturned. Women in our country have fewer rights now than when we started production in 2016.”
The US Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that affirmed the constitutional right to abortion care, in 2022.
Individual states have since grappled with how far to go in restricting abortion, with lawmakers considering bills to explicitly ban abortion bills and criminalise women seeking abortions.
According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, abortion is currently illegal in 13 states.
New episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale will air on Channel 4 and stream on Amazon Prime Video every Saturday from May 3.
English (US) ·