The Governing System In The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale is a story set in the Republic of Gilead, a dystopian imagining of the future of the U.S.. The country that the author creates is one in which no form of total freedom exists and people are punished for what had been normal in the past. But worst of all, in that world, women are merely tools and their only purposes are a. to govern over other women, b. to cook and do housework, and c. to procreate. The story is told from the perspective of Offred, who is a Handmaid, given the role of reproduction. This is, apparently, a role that is necessary to increase the birth rate of the republic that dropped below the zero line of replacement (p.113).

The society in which this story takes place is one where social systems have crumbled,

There was nothing for them anymore.” (p.210) And so, according to this, men are the ones who have lost their purpose. Yet to solve their problems, both women and men are forced to live in a worse world than they used to have. Of course, throughout the whole change, women have no choice, no say in the matter of how the governing system in Gilead is formed. The factors that show and shape inequality between men and women in the republic, can be categorized into the following: the men’s ownership over women, the deprivation of their freedom and rights, the belief that the women are merely tools and that their existence is viewed somehow as wrong. The clear superiority of men over women is especially distinct when we take a look at the Handmaids; their own names have been stripped from them, to be replaced with a label that merely tells who she is expected to produce the offspring of. This shows that the only part of their identity that is remotely valued or considered of significance, is who they belong to. The Commanders’ Wives, as appears in the books, are seen to have more power than other classes to females, and even they are not exempt from strict rules and regulations that surround women and restricts their

Especially in a country like Gilead where thoughts and expressions of the people are carefully controlled and monitored, the government and the media and distribute ideals, the socially accepted norms. They shut down anyone whose loyalty may be questionable, whoever might be a threat to the system, a maverick. The morbid image of the bodies hanging on the Walls demonstrate this, and while it is punishment for those who defy the system, it is also a warning for other citizens. And yet what I find more unsettling is how quickly people adapt to the new system, how little it takes for people to forget what was right and normal. “There is no such thing as a sterile man anymore, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law.” (p.61) As a scientific fact, this is untrue and would have been regarded as such, and yet it is widely accepted in Gilead. Another example: “All those women having jobs: hard to imagine, now, but thousands of them had jobs, millions. It was considered the normal thing.” (p.172) showing how things that should exist became the unusual. This is foreshadowed on page 33: “Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary.” And this is terrifying, more so than forced changes, because once people accept it as the new norm, it decreases the possibility of the