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The Handmaid's Tale

by Margaret Atwood

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How is Gilead almost as horrible for men as for women in The Handmaid's Tale?

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Gilead is a miserable place for everyone, but men do not suffer as much as women. Men retain autonomy over their bodies, while women are reproductive slaves. Men are deprived of emotional expression and empathy, but they still control the government and benefit from the rules. Although Gilead is not ideal for men, the suffering of women is far greater.

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Gilead seems to be a downright miserable place for everyone involved. Even the ruling class shows signs of discontent and unhappiness. However, there is no evidence to suggest that men experience a degree of misery near that which women experience in the dystopian setting of The Handmaid's Tale.
Ask any American if any part of Gilead seems to be desirable, and thankfully, the overwhelming majority will tell you "no." However, men in this society at least have the boon of autonomy over their own bodies. Bodily autonomy is an advantage that the majority of modern thinkers would call a basic human right. Stripped of sovereignty over their bodies, women in Gilead are reproductive slaves to be used and discarded. The issue of which biological sex suffers worse in this world couldn't be clearer.

However, the men do suffer, whether they know it or not. Similar to how patriarchal tendencies...

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often prevent men from exploring subjects that are considered feminine and developing mature and clear emotional communication skills in our modern world, so are the men of Gilead depriving themselves of half of the human experience.

Even in our world, the binary of gender roles and the stigma against the feminine deprives many men of a certain skill of articulation and empathy. When you dial that binary and stigma back to Old-Testament terms and levels, it isn't hard to see why the conditioning of Gilead causes men to not see women as humans.

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I think we can look for clues about how life in Gilead is, at least, unsatisfying for men in the Commander's behavior. The Commander was, apparently, one of the architects of Gileadean society, and he is certainly one of the individuals with the most power, and yet he is still unhappy. He routinely breaks the rules of society — rules that he helped to create — and not just with Offred but also with the handmaid before her, the one who hung herself in her room. He invites Offred into his study to play Scrabble; both of which — his invitation and the game — are forbidden. He takes her to Jezebel's — again, forbidden. He allows her to read old magazines and put on lotion; she even feels like he takes pleasure in watching her do these things. The Commander is clearly totally unsatisfied with his marriage, a relationship that has probably been irrevocably damaged, and society, or else he would not routinely break the rules.

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From a purely sexual standpoint, being forced to copulate in front of others in order to impregnate the handmaids is humiliating and degrading. Of course, for the handmaids it's rape; but the men are well aware of this, and while some may take pleasure in exerting their power and influence (as only men of high social standing are allowed to father children in this way), it is very likely a form of humiliation that they can't attract these younger women (the handmaids) on their own, or have relations with them that aren't characterized by force and manipulation. In this way, men's sexual potency is called into question. Also, as we see with Offred, her assigned "lover" can't seem to father children any longer, so his wife secretly arranges for Nick the driver to have sex with Offred so that she'll become pregnant. 

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Well, I have to say, I don't think it is. The socially condoned rape and forced childbearing seems worse than what the men have to suffer.


However, that said, the men suffer too. They suffer directly, by being observed at all times. They suffer by not being allowed to love freely. They suffer by the strict gender and social roles placed upon them, and because so few of them can have the true power positions. Of course, they suffer in an economic sense too, and an abstract one: there is very little freedom, and they are part of an unethical regime.

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