It was just TOO easy!

The Handmaid’s Tale has got to be one of the most interesting books I have read; Atwood has successfully created a society in which women are oppressed and used as baby-making machines. As I read through the book, one particular conversation between the Commander and Offred caught my attention. In this conversation the Commander expressed his reasoning for the creation of Gilead; apparently, “there was nothing for [men] to do…the sex was too easy…there was nothing to work for” (210), the world before Gilead was a bore for men and the creation of Gilead added the needed meaning to their lives. As I read this I laughed a little: so because sex is easy, it’s necessary to condemn women to a life of oppression as man’s property? This was the reasoning behind the creation of Gilead and they did not care about anyone as long as men were able to “feel” again and have something “to do with the women” (210). It was here that they got the idea to use women as property, for their own benefit because women could not live for themselves.

Men became the proprietors, stripping women of all rights and livelihood; women became mere property with only a function to justify their existence. The Commander only touches upon the subject of inequality between men and women when he says “better never means better for everyone… [it] means worse, for some” (211). The Commander feels Gilead definitely bettered society, and it didn’t matter if it sentenced women to a life of oppression and struggle. Offred keeps her comments to herself during this conversation, but I’m sure she thinks the complete opposite: how could this society be “better” when everyone is ranked and stripped of everything, rights, family, lifestyle, and even their own names?

As I read, I can’t help but think how our society today would react to such a drastic change in lifestyle; would we fight it, or remain submissive like the women in the book? Women today have come a long way and might have the resources to protest and fight oppression, but men are still the prominent controlling gender so the fight might not last too long. In the end, men would exercise their “macho” masculine traits and force women into submission, but I’m sure women would not go down without a fight…they might even end up victorious.