Handmaids Tale - Topic A
"As we walk away I know they're watching, these two men who aren't yet permitted to touch women. They touch with their eyes instead and I move my hips a little, feeling the full red skirt sway around me. It's like thumbing your nose behind a fence or teasing a dog with a bone held out of reach, and I'm ashamed of myself for doing it, because none of this is the fault of these men, they're too young.
Then I find I'm not ashamed after all. I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there."
This passage comes from a novel set in a time of extreme female degenaration, and is from the main point of view of Offred. Although in the book women posses almost no power over decisions in their life and their circumstances, Offred demonstrates her want for even the most menial authority here. She uses her body in a sexualized form in order to taunt innocent young guards that are unable to affect her or their lives. Although she feeles ashamed at first, she rethinks that idea and decides against this feeling, for the want of meager authority. I think this passage goes to show that in this society women are degraded and disrespected to a point where they must rely on sexualizing themselves to gain power. I believe this is true even though they are falsely respected by guards who will salute them; this seems to be simply a facade in order to keep the society from turning into the raw sexual form of slavery that it seems to be.
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