>>512916506
Yeah, they project onto the handmaids (red clothes, proven fertility but regarded as sinful women) and never the marthas (grey clothes, infertile, domestic servant class), jezebels (revealing clothing, infertile, prostitute class), or unwomen (the lowest social class for females in Gilead, wearing mostly grey, typically worked to death as slave labour for environmental and ecological restoration).
They enjoy projecting themselves onto the handmaids not just because the story focuses on them, or because the handmaids are oppressed, but because for women in Gilead, despite being oppressed being a handmaid was a relatively good social position that was somewhat above other classes; with only the Wives, Daughters, and Aunts being significantly above handmaids in terms of liberty or authority. They didn't have the same rigorous housekeeping responsibilities as the Marthas, weren't used and discarded as disposable tools like unwomen or jezebels, and were more valuable than econowives due to their proven fertility. Econowives had more liberty, but since most of them were infertile they weren't considered to be very valuable societally which is why they're married to low-status men (another reason women don't want to identify with them).
If women really wanted to identify with the most oppressed people in Gilead they would focus on the unwomen working in the colonies, but the fanbase doesn't really talk about them and the show doesn't focus on the colonies or unwomen all that much (at least not in the earlier seasons which are the only ones I bothered to watch). In fact the show tries quite hard to downplay Gilead's success at restoring the environment and significantly reversing the ecological devastation canonically perpetrated by the US. They don't want the audience getting any ideas that in dire circumstances the ends might justify the means.
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