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