On my way to work this morning, I listened to
this story on NPR. I was vaguely aware of the Spanish Civil War through literary and movie references, such as
Pan's Labyrinth. As I listened, it was interesting to me from a historical viewpoint until they detailed the lives and deaths of the victims and then I was pissed.
Fascism promotes strict gender roles, yet one of the many reasons why the term "Feminazi" is ludicrious (because you know that wanting to be treated like a human being is just like invading Poland). The Franco regime freaked out about politically active women who should have been home, in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. Until a state psychiatrist declared that they were morally degenerate and therefore should not be allowed children. That's the excuse they came up with to take thousands of children away from these women, often just before their executions, and then raise them in abusive conditions in order to indoctrinate them into fascism and ultra-conservative Catholicism. And the Catholic church denies a long history of pedophilia. *Snort*
It makes sense in a twisted, inhuman way. You quell at least half of the dissidents by denying them visibility, restricting their sphere of influence to the home and being an incubator. But what about all the children that you want them to bear? Can't have them being raised by independent thinkers of opposing political ideology, they might grow into their own army! Criminalize the mothers and take the children to become mindless drones in your war-machine. It's perfect!
Then I realized that's what happened in
The Handmaid's Tale. Women who weren't content to be docile housewives were forced to bear the children of government officials and/or outright prostitution. The children were then raised completely immersed in the tenets of the totalitarian theocracy.
It's one thing to read a critique of society, even one that hits so close to home. It's another to have blatant, horrific examples of it shoved under your nose.
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