Gilead Didn’t Happen Overnight—Neither Will This

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale was supposed to be a dystopian what if?, not an “oh shit, we’re getting close” But here we are, watching reproductive rights get steamrolled, women’s autonomy shrink faster than a cheap sweater in the wash, and political extremism spread like a TikTok trend no one asked for. Meanwhile, democracy is hanging on by a thread, and some people are out here acting like everything’s fine. Spoiler: It’s not.

In Gilead, women’s bodies belong to the state, their lives dictated by religious extremists who believe their only purpose is to pop out babies. Sounds wild, right? Except we’ve got politicians banning abortion, rolling back birth control access, and even floating ideas about restricting IVF. Doctors are being criminalized for providing care, and women in some states have fewer rights than corpses (yes, really—dead bodies have more legal protection from forced medical procedures than pregnant people in some places.) The justification? “Morality,” “sanctity of life,” and the classic “think of the children” rhetoric. But let’s be real: This isn’t about protecting life. It’s about control.

And it doesn’t stop there. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women don’t have bank accounts, jobs, or even their own names. Now, we’re not at Of-John levels yet, but let’s not pretend the writing isn’t on the wall. We’ve seen attacks on workplace protections, pay equity, and even education access. Hell, some politicians are trying to ban books because they think kids might learn too much. The goal is clear: make rights seem negotiable, something that can be granted or taken away at will. And once you start down that road, history shows us how it ends—badly, for everyone who isn’t already in power.

Gilead wasn’t built overnight. It took political polarization, fear-mongering, and a whole lot of “this could never happen here” energy before people realized they were screwed. Sound familiar? Today’s political climate is basically a breeding ground for the same playbook. We’ve got leaders testing how much they can get away with, voting rights being chipped away, and extremists treating the Constitution like a loose set of suggestions. If you think we’re just dealing with “bad policy” and not something bigger, you haven’t been paying attention.

One of the scariest things about The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t the brutality—it’s how normal everything became. The rights didn’t disappear overnight. It happened in stages, law by law, executive order by executive order, until suddenly, women woke up and realized they had none. If you’re sitting here thinking, “This could never happen in America,” congrats—that’s exactly how it starts.

And here’s where it gets even uglier. Under Trump’s second administration, the rollback of rights is happening at warp speed. His future plans, outlined in Project 2025 and Agenda 47, aren’t even subtle. The goal? Reshape the entire federal government to serve his agenda—stacking agencies with loyalists, pushing extreme executive power, and making sure the rule of law only applies when it benefits him. Project 2025 is essentially a guidebook for dismantling democracy, replacing career public servants with people who answer to Trump alone. And while that’s terrifying in itself, it’s only part of the plan.

Reproductive rights? Under siege. Trump’s already teasing federal restrictions on abortion, targeting transgender healthcare, and encouraging the most extreme elements of the conservative movement. Schools? Becoming battlegrounds for censorship wars. The justice system? Getting primed to serve power, not the people. This isn’t just about policy—it’s about restructuring America into a place where only a select few hold all the power, while everyone else fights for scraps.

If you think this is dramatic, ask yourself: How much have we already lost in just a few years? Rights don’t vanish all at once; they disappear in increments, under the cover of “protecting values” or “restoring order.” But when you step back and look at the bigger picture, it’s clear—we’re not heading toward Gilead. We’re already on the road.

So what do we do? We get loud. We get involved. We stop waiting for someone else to fix it. That means voting in every damn election (yes, even the boring local ones), supporting organizations on the frontlines of this fight, and refusing to let extremism become the norm. Change doesn’t happen from the sidelines. Either we fight now, or we wake up in a world where the fight is over—and we lost.

Atwood has often said that nothing in The Handmaid’s Tale is pure invention; every horror in the book has happened somewhere in the world at some point in history. That’s what makes it so terrifying—this isn’t just fiction, it’s a collage of real-world oppression, stitched together as a warning. The only question left is: Are we paying enough attention to stop it? And if history has taught us anything, it’s that we can get through this — even if it’s a bumpy road.