Feminist Movement & Role of Women

• Atwood is known for her feminist values and THT raises many questions about the role, treatment, and status of women.
• The feminist struggle has a long history, with the first National Women’s Rights Convention held in the USA in 1850.
• The National Women’s Suffrage Association, which campaigned for votes for women, was formed in the USA in 1869 and various states gradually gave the women the right to vote.
• In Britain, the National Society for Women’s Suffrage was founded in 1871.
• In England, many women over the age of 30 were given the right to vote in 1918 at the end of WW1.
• Atwood raises the issue of women’s status in Gilead, where men have the ultimate power and women are subservient and unable to work or own a bank account.
• Offred’s mother, a feminist, is portrayed as taking part in protests and demonstrations against the current situation.
• Offred remembers seeing her mother in a film where her mother is taking part in a protest.
• Atwood may be referencing real-life events such as the 1974 march in San Francisco by women against violence in pornography and media.
• Serena Joy, a character created by Atwood, was a woman who achieved her goal of keeping women at home, but now her old flourishing career is unthinkable and she suffers because of this.