The Handmaid’s Tale: Feminist Critiques of Patriarchal Structures
The handmaid’s tale contains numerous feminist critiques of the patriarchal structures and inclinations in the society. However, the same story illustrates that there are power structures in Gilead that evaluates the role women play in the support and oppression of another woman in society. The novel demonstrates that there is disunity among women a system that makes the society unpleasant for other women. The paper, therefore, will analyze how matriarchal networks in the society propel women hatred for each other.
Patriarchal System and Matriarchal Networks in Gilead
In Gilead, all men are essential people and perceive themselves as first-class citizens while the women fall under the third class category. Men in this community believe that reasserting their dominance is an aspect that will result in their success. Women are rebellious and threatening due to the liberation movements; they hold that is why they require control. To ensure that they assert supremacy women can no longer work, cannot own property or access any assets. The regulations leave them at the confines of their homes where they belong. The rules lead to a caste system society that divides citizens into classes outlined through responsibilities, behavior, and dress codes (Walworth). First, the patriarchal system ensured that they created a matriarchal set-up to control the women. According to Cara Diane, the work, the women, do in the order is to ensure that they maintain the subjugation of their fellow women. In the novel, Margret Artwood states that the cheapest way to control women for other purposes and reproduction was through using women (308). Artwoods statement emphasizes the importance of a matriarchal network for reinforcing and maintaining the other women. The household and the handmaid training was a significant element for the regulation of women and destabilizing their unity.
Brainwashing and Objectification of Women
Additionally, the aunts in the novel turn into degrading brainwashing methods to ensure that handmaids do not stray from their course. The handmaids have no choice but to watch pornographic films that contain violent and degrading acts towards women. The aunts loved the movie since it was an easy method to force the women into complacency. Offred states, “we had to watch a woman being slowly cut to pieces, her fingers and breasts snipped off with garden shears, her stomach split open, and her intestines pulled out” (Artwood 118). While the aunts use the video to illustrate how men viewed women in the society, the action is ironic. First, the aunts control and force the women to comply with the rules of the Gilead patriarchal system using the clip, torturing the emotions and psychological well-being of their fellow women. Second, the aunts still believe that objectification of women is the sole source of oppression. The Second wave of feminists shared the ideology that objectification was the primary source for social oppression (Gordon). Their belief is ironical since they are supposed to be liberated and see other ways men socially oppress women but the aunts still hold on to the past ideologies.
Humiliation and Abuse Techniques
Apart from brainwashing, the aunts employ the use of humiliation and abuse techniques to oppress the women. The aunts believed that humiliating the women in front of each other would make them obey the rules and desire of the Gilead patriarchy. For instance, Janice suffers repeated shaming and humiliation in front of her peers. One of the aunts denies her permission to use the restroom, and she ends up soiling her clothes. Similarly, Janice is forced to admit that she lured the men who raped her causing an abortion during her teenage years. The women in this society do not have the freedom to dress in whatever clothes they feel since they tempt men to do them harm. Aunt Lydia echoes the principles of the Gilead patriarchal structure that domestic, sexual and rape violence is results of the sexual freedom that women have which leads men to harm. Aunt Lydia openly condemns Janice stating that they deserved what they got since they made a spectacle of themselves through oiling their bodies like roasted meat on a spit, revealing their bare backs and shoulders, on the street public while showing their legs without stockings (Artwood 53). While the women in the society struggled to achieve sexual freedom, men believed that their liberty was the foundation of their victimization. Women tempted men to assault and sexually violate their bodies. Instead of the aunts supporting the women in the sexual freedom they become the voice of the men openly condemning the women for their choices in clothes and flaunting their bodies. The aunts go ahead to ensure that the women feel humiliated, and insecure about their safety when they did not put stockings on.
Double Oppression and Betrayal
In addition, the aunts in the Red Center chose to use physical violence when all their psychological and emotional torture would work. Offred recounts how her friend Moira is unable to walk after physical punishment from the aunts. Moira later escapes the red center, but her friends remain in trouble. They cannot make friendships since it is an illegal social act. The women and the handmaids act as enemies and spies against each other. When the handmaids leave the Red Center, they go the households where dislike and hatred is the bond in the families. The wives in the homes they go openly criticize and openly show their hostility to the handmaids. For instance, the wife of the commander tells her friends that the handmaids are, “little whores, all of them, but still, you can’t be choosy, you take what they hand out, right, girls” (115). Aunt Lydia affirms the commander wife statement when she states that they should not worry about the husbands but the wives. She says that the wives will resent the handmaids since they are defeated, women. Aunt Lydia’s and the commander wife statement demonstrate that the women have no trust in each other. They view the fellow women as competition who wants to take their position and it is natural to put their competitors down. The handmaids suffer at the hand of their fellow women. They devote their time and life to bear children, yet they have no right and chance to dedicate their lives to their children. Men in the Gilead community believe in women oppression that they incorporate adultery for their pleasure under the disguise of reproduction (Lenore).
The Role of Conception and Ownership of Women
Elaheh and Mirenayat assert that in the Gilead society conception is the central theme and focus of the families. The families follow the motto that upon their knees the woman shall bear upon her knees. The commander, the wife, and the handmaid’s presence are crucial in the celebration of the shameful event. However, despite their views toward the development, a practice humiliates, objectifies, and perpetrates the ownership of women in society. The handmaids are not happy about the ceremony since it is a reminder of the failed unity among women. Their fellow women take pride in their oppression and suffering yet they have to make the humiliation as part of their duty to the society. Offred states that the event is not part of their sexual desire since they are not acting on their free will. Their hands are restrained, showing that it is a forceful action that they do not enjoy but rather a duty they should fulfill. Offred states that she detaches herself from the ceremony and her emotions to endure the act. For the wives in the house, they have to watch their husbands have intercourse with another woman, an action that is insulting. The wives and the husbands collaborate to propagate women oppression.
Conclusion
The Handmaid's Tale clearly shows how women during that period were part of the scheme to control and oppress their fellow women. The handmaids suffer double oppression, first the patriarchal system that created the caste structure in the society. Second, by the matriarchal structure that the men place that acts as the voice and the instrumental organ for the patriarchy in Gilead. The handmaids face double oppression more, and betrayal forms the women who are supposed to be their support system and champions for women liberation. The novel illustrates that women's hatred for other women is a destructive force that destroys unity and ensures isolation and allegiance to the men in society.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. "The Handmaid’s Tale. 1985." New York: Anchor (1998): 317-21.
Bartz-Edge, Cara Diane. Sinister Spaces: Liminality and the Southern Ontario Gothic in Margaret Atwood's Fiction. Diss. Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, University of Regina, 2012.
Betts, Lenore. Puffball and The handmaid's tale: the influence of pregnancy on the construction of female identity. Diss. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University, 2002.
Gordon, Linda. "Socialist Feminism: The legacy of the “second wave.” New labor forum. Vol. 22. No. 3. Sage CA: Los Angeles, CA: SAGE Publications, 2013.
Soofastaei, Elaheh, and Sayyed Ali Mirenayat. "Politics, Violence, and Victimization in Margaret Atwood’s Selected Novels." International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences 50 (2015): 86-90.
Wallworth, Giorgia. "Traversing the boundaries of the New Momism: Challenging the “good” mother myth in The Handmaid’s Tale (2017–) and Big Little Lies (2017–)." (2018).
