By Pierce Hartigan -
For those who may not have picked up on it, this topic is a nod to the popular Margaret Atwood book, 1990 film and 2017 TV series The Handmaid’s Tale. This is problematic for me, because I had never actually read or watched The Handmaid’s Tale and I didn’t really know what to do with it for this speech. But because I took annual leave after my birthday … uh, after lunch for my birthday (sic) and I was in the mood for a bit of a birthday treat, I figured I’d inform myself by sitting through 10 or so hours of intense gender politics set in a dystopian society where fertile young women are subjugated for the benefit of men. And then after I finished catching up on Bachelor in Paradise I thought I’d have a crack at The Handmaid’s Tale while I ironed all my shirts for next week. So that’s an insight into how I like to spend my annual leave, and also my birthdays. You can probably already tell that about me though, because in these glasses I’ve been told I look like a mathematician from the Apollo space program who also moonlights as a racist.
