Women Talking (2022)

This is a hard movie to watch, and while it is set in a modern time, there are a lot of principles that echo A Handmaid's Tal--men control everything. They have control over every aspect of women's lives and that is the point, the power and control is everything, obedience is paramount. This is based on a true story. Between 2005 and 2009, 150 women and young girls were drugged and raped by men in their secluded Mennonite community in Bolivia. The women would wake up having no idea what happened, but seeing blood, bruising on their legs, noticing their underwear was missing, and becoming pregnant. The age range of the victims spanned from 5 to 65. Mennonite communities normally handle such things in-house. But this time, the elders of the community (all men)—who got suspicious and decided to follow one of the men at night, thereby catching him in the act—reported the crime to the Bolivian authorities. The eventual trial, where the victims showed up to testify, was a sensation. Eight men were sentenced to 25 years in prison. Here the movie revolves around the woemn deciding what to do once they know that the men are coming back to the community. Do they do nothing, stay and fight, or leave. These scenes are interspersed with scenes of what happened. In one a young girl miscarries and is covered in her blood--she wonders if her brother was the father, or was it someone else who raped her. The experience of watching this is akin to hearing men talking about what should happen to women, such as in the denial of the right to make a decision about what should happen to your body, that is right here and now in the United States. It is cloaked in other rhetoric, but the bottom line is that it is men exerting power and control over women. Quite sickening and something to fight with all your might.