Free Handmaids Tale Essays: The Oppression of Women :: Handmaids Tale Essays

The subjection of Women in Handmaids Tale Within freedom should come gage. Within security should come freedom. But in Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, it seems as though there is no in between. Atwood searches throughout the novel for a long suit between the two, but in my eyes fails to give justice to a charrs body image. Todays society has holdd a maintenance of dishful and sexuality in this image. It is as though a beautiful woman can be just that, but if at the same time, if she is able and motivated within acting as a sexual being, she is conception of as exploiting herself and her body. Atwood looks for a solution to this problem, but in my eyes fails to do so. In the Handmaids Tale women are supposed to be more infrangible then they have ever been. Their bodies and their ability to reproduce are worshiped by society. Crimes against women have been erased. There is no longer rape, or domestic somatogenetic and mental violence against women. There is also no abort ion. For women to exist in a space like this, one would think that they had the freedom to be powerful, strong women. Yet they are enslaved to this idea of being protected. Atwood tries to define a womans security as being powerful, but actually she just contributes to the idea that women are incapable of taking care of and protect themselves. The novel also portrays a space where a womans body is something to fear and hide. My nakedness is strange to me already. My body seems outdated. Did I rightfully wear bathing suits at the beach? I did, without thought, amoung men, without caring that my legs, my arms, my thighs and grit were on display, could be seen. Shameful, immodest. I avoid looking at my body, not so much because its shamefull or immodest but because I dont loss to see it. I dont want to look at something that determines me so completely.(P.63) Women fear their own bodies, they dont jazz themselves. Which is unfortunate because having love for your body can create a very powerful space for a woman. When women learn to love themselves and their bodies and not fear what they can do with them, they gain self-esteem and boldness to do whatever it is they want to do. A society such as this, defined as having a basis on women, truely, does not.