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Gender Inequality In The Handmaid's Tale

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The novel The Handmaid 's Tale written by Margret Atwood is about how the government chose to have power over the way the community was controlled and be in command of the lives of men and women. The novel unfolds from the view of a middle-aged woman named Offred who questions beliefs and rules that have been accepted by the society. Offred is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead who is persistently questioning the government beliefs and regulations. Her character pushes the restrictions arranged by the government. This is illustrated in details through her disobedience against the social principles, her methods of challenging them and the final result of her challenge.
Women are the main sufferers in the society which Atwood pictures, the Republic of Gilead and her vision of this society reveals many of the inequalities and abuses faced by women all over the world in the past and in the current world. …show more content…

For example, many women in Gilead agree with the government and help to keep other women in check. One would blame the Commander’s Wife for not showing team spirit to her gender and rebelling against Gilead, without understanding that this is actually an expectation, since it believes that gender is the most important trait, while really it is just a smaller version of the anti-individual totalitarianism of Gilead. Atwood may be reminding her readers that women by tradition have served to impose the rules of a patriarchal society, from the manner of responsibility for the socialization of young girls to the enforcement of adult individualists through mockery or isolation. In a way, The Handmaid’s Tale is about the present as well as the future, suggesting that until there are large changes in women’s and men’s understanding and social way, society will continue to be in danger of this kind of

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