Cristina Hernandez Thomen

Miss Esau
Honors English
13 Nov 2019

Feminist Critique: The Handmaid’s Tale

It took women around the United States more than 80 years of protest in order to get

women's suffrage rights established. Imagine living in a world where the right to vote would

only be the beginning of your concerns if you were female. “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret

Atwood, paints a relationship where women are completely dependent on men and “othered” by

society through the lack of rights they have in comparison to men, the worth assigned to women

determined by how useful they are to men, and the gender roles followed by every woman in

Gilead, in order to highlight the possible consequences of conforming to patriarchy.

When most women's rights got completely taken away by the new totalitarian

government system in Gilead, they had no choice but to completely depend on the men once they

were left with nothing of their own. The Republic of Gilead, formerly known as the United

States of America, was experiencing a division within their people where half of them pushed

and protested for progressivism, while the rest wished to return to the “traditional”. As the latter

overpowered the rest of society, an extremist totalitarian theocracy was established. This came

hand in hand with all women’s rights getting completely ripped away, forbidding their ability to

vote, read and write, or own jobs, land, and money. This 180-degree turn on women’s everyday

lives left every one of them without options and fully dependent, whether that was what they

wanted or not. Because a big part of the female population was advocating for this change to be

implemented in Gilead, the author used this element of the plot to confront the women in today’s

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age that call themselves “antifeminists” or decide to go against the efforts taken to secure

equality between the genders. Atwood wanted to highlight the possible severity of the

consequences society could face for not campaigning for women’s rights when given a platform.

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, women’s roles and “worth” are defined either by

how beneficial they can be towards men or their husband’s established worth, which attaches

them to a life where everything revolves around the men they find themselves surrounded by.

Similar situations are commonly referred to as women getting “othered,” which means that they

are separated from what is most important and given a role of subordination in comparison to the

“other” group: men. In Gilead, there are specific types of women. Handmaids, who are valued

but disrespected, are the fertile women assigned to men of rank to bear their children. Infertile

women were considered “unhuman” and were kept on the outskirts of the city doing manual

labor. They were not considered as people for the simple reason that their bodies could not cater

to men. The worth applied to women based on the men in their lives is also seen through what

Gilead calls “econowives”. Econowives are also found at the bottom of the hierarchy and are

forced to carry their husband’s bad reputation of not financially prospering. The only women

who were respected, aside from the elite wives, were the women officials called “aunts”. These

women intentionally pushed away all of their rights, not only submitting to patriarchy but

dedicating their lives to enforcing these dehumanizing laws. The fact that the main character,

Offred, never went against her tasks as a handmaid connects the fact that the book doesn't end

with the destroying of this awful government system. By Margaret Atwood choosing to tell the

story from a regular woman’s point of view, and not from the one of a rebellious activist, she

calls attention to how common it is for women to stay silent. Staying silent and conforming to

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patriarchal ways gets the female population nowhere. This must be highlighted so women know

it is not an option to not speak up when looking for progress.

Finally, the women in The Handmaid’s Tale were taught to conform to gender roles that

restricted them from having their own will and underestimated their abilities. Throughout the

whole novel, it is clear how women are forced to drop their careers and reduced to completing

tasks like bearing children and running errands. This system stems from traditional gender roles

from the beginning of time, that women should stay at home and depend on the men that work

for a living. At the same time, women were forced to stay in uniform, and not even officials were

allowed to carry guns. This shows how even within the positions of power, gender roles are

engraved in the minds of the conservative. In the book and real life, women being completely

dependent on men and not even being able to protect themselves constantly gets normalized. The

gender roles within this novel highlight every aspect of what a patriarchy is: a system where men

hold complete dominance on every aspect whether it be political, social, moral, or financial.

Atwood was not shy about including common gender roles found within society and used these

to highlight the amount of stagnation present in a patriarchal society and the extension of these

gender roles until today, although established so many centuries ago.

The dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood paints a relationship

where women are completely dependent on men and “othered” by society through the lack of

rights they have in comparison to men, the worth assigned to women determined by how useful

they are to men, and the gender roles followed by every woman in Gilead, in order to highlight

the possible consequences of conforming to patriarchy. This meant that women were constantly

viewed as second-best and never enough, with men always holding some sort of power over

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them. These elements have a strong voice within the story and were all part of Atwood’s plan of

what she wanted the piece to become: a wake-up call for future generations.