Fellow Handmaid's Tale fan here! I think the key difference is that Handmaid's Tale is very obiviously set in an alternate reality. The religious fundamentalism, the rigid social order, the public executions and the police state.

All of these are themes which have affected and still affect women, but they're given a certain distance by the fact that they're so exaggerated and come together in such an extreme way. Even truly awful countries like Saudi Arabia can't compare to Gilead.

That said, I'd totally understand any woman who said she found Handmaid's Tale triggering or who didn't like it. Though interestingly I don't know any who don't.

'Them" on the other hand just feels ike a cynical attempt to cash-in on the current climate of racial tension. It's based in a real place, references real phenomena like redlining and is set in a time when black people really were lynched and raped for being in the wrong place after dark. There's none of the distance that Gilead provides, or at least not enough.

I don't know, maybe you disagree, but "Them" feels a lot more cynical and gratuitous to me. But maybe I'm just biased.