Intensification of Inter-genderDomination by Intra-gender Exploitation in Margaret Atwood’s novelThe Handmaid’s Tale

Abstract

This thesis studies Margaret Atwood’s novelThe Handmaid’s Talein order to find out the real causes behind the discrimination of women in patriarchal society especially in Gilead. For this,the researcher makes study on how the intra-gender domination intensifies the inter-gender domination by applying the feminism as a research methodology. The patriarchy confines women to socially institutionalized motherhood as childbearing machines. The women’s deprivation of female sexuality is because of the experience of sexual objectification within the institution of heterosexuality in a maledominated society. In Gilead, women, as the Handmaids, are forced by the Aunts to take the maternal roles to reproduce babies. The patriarchy assumes thatinter-genderdomination persists as long as there isintra-gender domination. Thus,the females living in patriarchy should try to minimize theintra- genderdomination in order to wipe out theinter-genderdomination.