مجلة المقال
Volume 5, Numéro 1, Pages 264-274
2020-12-15

The Feminine Betrayal: The Anti-feminist Discourse In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

Authors : Bouterra Bochra .

Abstract

Margaret Atwood tends to emphasize women’s situation in patriarchal societies, but her feminist behavior seems to be distanced from the first and second waves of feminism. She indulges into a third wave feminism that attacks an anthropocentric feminism. This attack is held on the fact that first and second wave feminisms focus only on a specific category of women. This article, therefore, tries to explain how women are betrayed on their way to liberate themselves. It distances Atwood from the feminist anthropocentric attitudes as it portrays a group of females who are caught in an oppressive patriarchal/matriarchal society. The oppression of this society is related to having women controlling the lives of other women. The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the novels that emphasize the atrocities that can be brought by betraying women by other women.

Keywords

feminine betrayal, feminism/anti-feminism, matriarchy, Gilead, disunity, Aunts, The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood.