Hey everybody, this past week we wrapped up Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood. I wanted to dedicate this blog to something I notice over the course of the book. While this was a society where men have subjugated and commoditized women, most the actions that directly repress our female characters are perpetrated by other females.

There were multiple systems within the Gilean society that led me to this observation. First was a web of surveillance and informing, including the Aunts as well as each Maid being paired off with a partner. This made it so women were inadvertently responsible for their own day to day oppression, especially of free speech as Offred experiences. Another instance of this was the direct slut shaming at the Red Center we saw when Janine recounted her horrible rape story. Even Offred who despises her cannot bring herself to feel comfortable berating and humiliating her in such away. Finally the Wives also have control of the household including discipline over the Martha’s as well as the Maids. By separating these classes among the female population(wives, marthas, maids, econowives, unwomen) these classification create system where women resent each other, dividing themselves even further.

I think that this was included to highlight the issue of women impeding progress in their own equal rights with men or in the case of the book their own genders sovereignty from men. When researching this further, I found that the second wave of feminism, which took place the decades leading up to the writing and publication of this book, ultimately failed to past their flagship legislation the Equal Rights Amendment due to infighting and anti-feminist sentiment from other women. I also found that a conflict soon after took place within the movement over the topic of sexuality, all of which would have taken place around the time of this books writing. With this in mind I believe that Atwood used her speculative fiction to show women a world where feminist movements ultimately fail, and women are left vulnerable to old beliefs that place restrictions on women’s sexuality as well as their own agency.