Women and the Fight for Equality

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Women and the Fight for Equality
Women have had to navigate the patriarchal society for a long time. Stereotypes that focus mainly on their inferiority continue to be propagated by individuals who seek to maintain the status quo. In some cultures, girls are not allowed to go to school as a ploy to keep women at bay and make sure they do not seek to advance themselves. The best way to keep anyone at bay is to make sure they do not dream and women have been subjected to positions of desolation and despair. Such positions keep them in a vacuum where there is no air to breathe and where they have to look up to a higher power for everything. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, women are subjected to a position of despair and the higher powers seem to have them voiceless. The Republic of Gilead is one that is ready to use whichever means to make sure people conform to its policies. Freedom of choice is non-existent in this society and people have to make do with what the Republic decides. Women receive the worst of what Gilead has to offer because their existent is mainly based on their fertility or lack thereof. However, while women are forced into subjugation in the society of Gilead, they do make use of various ways to attain independence.
In the Republic of Gilead, the law appears to favor a select few who hold esteemed positions in the society. The society is divided between those who set the rules and the subjects. Subjects have to agree with all that comes from the rulers and this is non-negotiable. Kingston (834) notes that Gilead’s ruling elite have created a world that is different from that of the subjects. “Certainly, it appears that Gilead’s ruling elites have carved out some for themselves – note the emergence of illicit nightclubs, the access to banned material from ‘the time before,’ and the willingness to bend rules over the procreation of children.” However, to women, life was filled with hurdles that seemed to squeeze the life out of them. Women were subjected to rules that curtailed any sort of development one could think of. For example, Atwood (231) talks of how women were not allowed to own bank accounts. “They’ve frozen them, she said. Mine too. The collective’s too. Any account with an F on it instead of an M.” This is a testament to a society that prides itself in subjugating women. Furthermore, women were also denied the right to own property (Atwood 232). “Women can’t hold property anymore, she said. It’s a new law.” These were oppressive rules that were deemed reasonable by the higher powers. In today’s society, many would deny the existence of rules and laws that restrict women from owning property. However, a report from World Bank reports that many countries have laws that restrict women’s empowerment. Clement from the Women’s Advancement Deeply notes that “167 countries have at least one law on the books that restrict women’s economic opportunity.” It is indeed retrogressive to have women restricted from achieving their dreams and living to become respectable individuals of society. Women deserve better treatment and not the cold shoulder from their governments. The patriarchal societies need to be destroyed and women be accorded the respect as individual human beings as the men are.
Aside from being denied the right to have bank accounts and own property, women are also defined in terms of their fertility. Women are deemed essential in Gilead only for their child-bearing capabilities. One cannot be faulted to think that if the rulers had found another way of producing children, then women would be slaves or be used for sport or anything that seems horrendously derogatory. As any factory operator would know, if there is a defect in one aspect of a production chain, the solutions are either to acquire a new one or to cast that particular aspect aside. The same goes for women of the Republic of Gilead. They were expected to produce or else be cast aside. Categorizing women on the basis of their fertility is indeed inhuman. Offred, like other women, lived in fear. She explains that getting her menstrual period was a sign of danger. “Each month I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes it means failure” (Atwood 84). The menstrual cycle is a sign of life and growth. However, in the Republic of Gilead, it was taken to mean failure to conceive. In societies today, women have been profiled and have their value reduced compared to that of men. For one reason or another, women are not given the same opportunities as men are. The 2018 report by World Bank indicates that a majority of countries have legislations that continually reduce the value of women. For example, the report indicates that in 36 of the 189 economies studied, “widows are not granted the same inheritance rights as widowers” (13). It continues to indicate that 39 economies “prevent daughters from inheriting the same portion of assets as sons.” These are but laws that profile wo...