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How To Get Powerless In The 1920s

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Women's Rights In the year of 1920 women were finally given the right to vote for office. Women's rights have had a great absence in U.S. history for as long as 1920. In The Handmaid's Tale and in history, women were never given any rights or right to vote. In the book there are many examples of what history once looked like for women and how powerless they really were. By the women not having any say or opinion it made them way more powerless then the men in society. In The Handmaids Tale and throughout history, women are seen to have no rights for themselves, making them powerless. Throughout history, women's rights has been an ongoing struggle for equality and power. Women have been struggling to have equal rights for as long as history …show more content…

During “the second wave of feminism was to focus on equal rights and opportunities” (Britannica). The first wave was aimed at equal legal rights, such as the “right to vote” (Britannica). Later on in history the movement group “National Organization for Women was born” (Britanica). This group was not always successful with what they were doing, but when they were they made major changes. There is no discrimination in the workforce, including maternity leave and child care deductions. One of their major rulings was making “employers barred from firing women due to pregnancy” (Britanica). The NOW organization will lead women's rights into an uphill rise and help many women be heard in history. In The Handmaid's Tale, women are seen as reproductive slaves and have no rights to what they want. In the handmaid's head the saying “give me children, or else I die” (Atwood 61) is engraved. The women in the book are forced to have children for the commander and his wife in order to stay. Failure to do so will lead the handmaid to either be shipped off to dig holes in toxic environments or even be …show more content…

In the book, it shows what it was like to be fired as a woman by your employers. One day the boss of Offred came in and said to all the women “I have to let you all go” (Atwood 176). They were forced to fire the women because they were making money and didn’t want them to have any financial power. In the book, the handmaids are also stolen from their finances and property. “Women can’t hold property anymore, it’s the new law” (Atwood 178) was the rumor that was going around all over. The government took away the women's rights to own property and have their own finances. When they take the women's property, it is given to their husband and he gets the say in what happens with it. Offred says “you get all my money” to Luke and that's when she realizes she's powerless and all of her stuff is in Luke's hands. Due to having no power or rights, the women had to fight back to earn everything they wanted. In the book, the alliance “Mayday” was created to fight against the government of Gilead and help women escape. The women would help each other escape and not be killed if they were caught going against rules. Just like in modern day with the creation of “National Woman's Suffrage Association” (History). The founders of the association were Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Statanton, just how Ofglen and Aunt Lydia helped Mayday. These “organizations

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They had no will of knowing what was in the meat they were feeding their children. They had no idea that their daily medications for their children were infused with harsh drugs such as heroin and cocaine. Little did they know, they started a ballot for women rights and voting. If women's rights were evaluated, there wouldn’t be such commission and hatred. The laws would slowly flow easier and better

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(Atwood 187). Although Handmaids experience oppression by the Gilead regime, Atwood emphasizes the importance of unity and collaboration in the face of difficulties. The government of Gilead presents how hypocritical their society is toward women’s rights since the government uses a form of manipulation to make the Handmaid’s circumstances more tolerable. Additionally, Offred expresses how women do not have a right to their bodies because of the power others have over them as Offred states “I am abject” (Atwood 331). Offred expresses the removal of her individuality, autonomy, and basic human rights.

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Before women had gotten the vote, it was difficult for all women. They had no say in what was done or where they would work or even where they would live. They would be left out in the dark if something were to happen like their husband separating from

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This was major for women's rights in the United States. Women were Protesting for decades before gaining this right making it worth all the struggle women went through. Many women actually believed that women should not gain the right to vote and were against the suffrage movement because they blamed women for how things ended up with their businesses. But in the 1800s women were expected to make children, cook, and clean. They were also constantly overlooked by their husbands and“did not have the rights to their children if they were divorced” while “all their income would go to their husbands” (Nashville Public Television).

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‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ shows patriarchy and how it is used against the female voice through how the Gileadean society has placed women in roles of labourers and handmaids. For example, “He is demonstrating, to me, his mastery of the world. He’s breaking the rules, under

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Today, women citizens of the United States have the right to vote, own property, and run for political office, but do you what the daily lives for women was like before they were given their rights? It was not until the early 1800s, that people started realizing the inequality between men and women. Some women’s rights activists included Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Frederick Douglass, and Lucretia Mott.

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Throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred explains what the change was like. While living in the democracy, women had rights. They were guaranteed the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, and the freedom

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These women received a liberal education and in their college experiences they found inspirations that motivated them to put their knowledge to work. According to the article, “The Fight for Women’s Suffrage,” written by the History Channel’s authors, many of the college-educated women in the late 19th century never married. Instead, they joined married women to form associations concerned with extending the maternal role into the public sphere. Women wanted to educate young children, institute benefits for the poor, and improve health conditions for women and children(Staff, H). The voluntary associations formed included the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the General Federation of Women's Clubs, numerous settlement houses, and a refreshed suffrage

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While the men, for the most part, live easily in that they can enjoy the freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution, they are trapped in a mental sense, as they have no form of real communication or relationship with anyone other than business cohorts. Women, however, are both physically as well as mentally trapped. Specifically, the section of women known as the Handmaids are not only stuck working in submission for a household of people they did not choose, but they are also physically confined to the house, as well as the daily silent excursions to the town center. Handmaids are women reserved for repopulating the diminished population of the Republic of Gilead. Because they are the only reproducing class of women within the republic, they are more oppressed than all other citizens, as the government would like to protect the women as vessels for carrying the future of the Republic.

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The government takes away all property from women because they believe the men are the only ones that should be trusted to hold any property. The Handmaids are also being watched everywhere they go. As Offred walks with Offglen she thinks about

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Throughout history, women have often been subjected to prejudice and an inferior status to men. Due to sexist ideologies of men believing that women are not capable of controlling their own lives, women have often been reduced to the status of property. This concept is prominent in many pieces of literature to demonstrate the struggles women have to go through in a predominantly, male structured world. In the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, the author illustrates a woman’s battle in an extreme society ruled by men to express the misogyny occurring in the time period when it was written, 1894. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia summarizes Atwood’s story as one that “depicts one woman’s chilling struggle to survive in a society ruled by misogynistic fascism, by which women are reduced to the condition of property.”

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Now women are lawyers, engineers, mechanics, computer programmers, and other jobs that have been primarily male dominated for years. Although sexism has been a key problem in the working industry, as evidenced by putting women in lower paying jobs, women today are putting an end by joining the women's movement pushing this issue into the mainstream media and increasing the worlds awareness on an issue that has been around for centuries. Although there were no movements specifically for women's rights to work there were movements for women's rights as a whole. As history tells, men did not believe women had the

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The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. She is well-known for being a poet, novelist, inventor, essayist, and an environmental activist. She 's a feminist this is important because in her novels she often portrays the female characters being oppressed and rebelling against stronger males. Attwood is very interested in environmentalist issues and one of her main themes for her novels, particularly ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ include men interfering nature. The Handmaid’s Tale is about a totalitarian society set in Gilead which used to be apart of the United States.

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