Jasmine's Relationships with Women

Jasmine does not seem to interact much with women. Back when she was Jyoti, she listened to the village women as "[t]hey squatted in a row and gossiped" (54) during "'Ladie's Hour'"(55). "The women's strategy was to stick together," Jasmine tells us (55). Oddly enough, this is comparable Jasmine's relationship with Wylie. Wylie explains to Jasmine that they are "family; in a family don't sisters sometimes fight?" she adds (178). There is a feeling of togetherness between these women that can be related to my favourite line in Mary Oliver's poem "Wild Geese": "Tell me your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine." The idea of female togetherness and unity among women through difficulty is found in both parts of Jasmine's life. In Hasnapur, Jasmine and the other women "stick together" in order to avoid the "perverts from the village across the stream [who] sat on their bank and ogled at" them (55). In New York City with Wylie, they are united by the difficulty that Wylie faces: first, in that her daughter Duff considers Jasmine her "mummy" (instead of just a "day mummy") and secondly, when Wylie decides to leave Taylor (178). Jasmine's relationship with these women are rooted in a feeling of togetherness in that they are all women. Wylie can confide in Jasmine, because she is a women, a "sister" in the fight against problems, and the women from Hasnapur are bonded by fighting against problems as well; they want protection against men, safety from the "wild geese."

Jasmine has only had positive experiences with other women; she has close relationships with them, as we see from these two examples. However, when it comes to Bud's ex-wife Karin, a side of Jasmine comes out that we, as readers, have not seen before. When Jasmine and Karin encountered each other in the supermarket, Karin catches Jasmine "reaching for an apple pie," (195-196) and thinks, "She must have baked them from scratch for Bud" when they were married (196). This is the first moment we glimpse competition between these two women. It shows Jasmine's criticism of herself. Whenever she competes with Karin, comparing herself to Bud's ex-wife, she puts herself down. This is shown again when Jasmine says, "Karin would have read the signals" when Harlan was going to shoot Bud, pointing to the fact that Jasmine did not (198). This behaviour is something we haven't seen among women yet in the book, but is very common in The Handmaid's Tale where competition among Handmaid is based largely on fertility, pregnancy, and then providing a healthy child. Instead, in Jasmine, women - except, clearly, for Karin and Jasmine's relationship - seem to bond with one another and be close-knit, just like the women in Hasnapur during "'Ladie's Hour'"(55) and the "sisters" Wylie and Jasmine (178).