Alina Stepanov ’25

Advance Critical Writing: Intersectionality in Margaret Atwood’s Works Illuminates Patriarchal Subjugation of the Environment and Women 

Margaret Atwood is a speculative fiction writer. Her work revolves around the future, women and the environment. A number of Atwood’s writings create a framework for the reader to analyze these topics through the intersectionality of her narratives. Atwood’s 1990 essay “The Female Body,” discusses a system that runs on making profits by outsourcing many resources from the environment. This is reflected in society’s interpretation of female bodies. This essay sets up her first major full-length work The Handmaid’s Tale, which embodies the potential speculative outcome of the issues described in “The Female Body.” This is explored through constant exploitation of the environment, which has turned radioactive and harms the growth of population, and fertile women are enslaved for reproduction. Further, a 2020 short story, “Impatient Griselda, ” is the aftermath of the dystopian outcome of The Handmaid’s Tale. Humanity is in a situation of healing; an alternative to patriarchy is portrayed as humanity is nursed back to health by alien entities away from an environment that has collapsed. All of these works demonstrate a degradation of the interconnected nature between women and the environment. “The Female Body” discusses the contemporary exploitation of women and the environment, while The Handmaid’s Tale speculates upon its future impacts on women. Lastly, “Impatient Griselda” recognizes these impacts and aims to repair them. How are women as well as the environment in a constant situation of subjugation? These works create an escalation of the domination of patriarchy and depict the potential impacts of its destructive nature. Through the use of intersectionality, Atwood draws a parallel to how women and the environment are simultaneously affected by the instruments of patriarchy such as capitalism, religious extremism, and a static gender binary.

In “The Female Body,” Atwood explores how the environment and women are intrinsically exploited as a motor for generating wealth in a capitalistic society. “The Female Body” is Atwood’s response to a letter from the Michigan Quarterly Review asking her about the ‘capacious topic’– the female body– she writes about. This essay takes the form of a rebuttal as Atwood argues that the question is insensitive and highlights the problematic nature of perceiving female bodies as a ‘topic’. Her response to the claim, which reduces the female body to a political controversy, sets up an analytical view on how women are shaped and perceived within a patriarchy. Indeed, she demonstrates how women’s bodies are seen under the patriarchal lens of capitalism, which is exploitable and a motor that generates wealth. “She’s a natural resource, a renewable one luckily, because those things wear out so quickly. They don’t make ‘em like they used to. Shoddy goods” (Atwood 4). The notion of humanity is extracted from the female body in a capitalist society to reinforce women as somewhat a body of resources, similarly to the environment. Atwood is alluding to the fact that one of the perceptions of women is as a ‘natural resource.’ This sets up an intersection between the female body and the natural body of the environment. Therefore, Atwood is implying that both bodies are in a situation of exploitation by the overarching patriarchy. This form of exploitation is derived from Judeo-Christian philosophy, which sets up the groundwork for capitalism. According to this philosophy, the environment is meant to be dominated and exploited for the purposes of humanity. Indeed, David P. Turner, a professor at Oregon State University, explores that the organized labor of capitalism is to manipulate resources in order to create marketable products. If it is possible, the product is consequently expanded on, therefore it requires more resources (Turner.) This manipulation of resources negatively impacts the environment. Therefore, Judeo-Christian philosophy is applied in the creation of these products since the needs of humanity takes primacy over the environment. Taking into consideration the result of this archaic school of thought, Atwood argues that capitalism becomes a tool of dominance utilized by patriarchy, through its exploitation. Indeed, if women are deemed to be ‘a natural resource’ then they are in the same position of subjugation as the environment and experience the same form manipulation. For this reason, this form of manipulation adheres to the notion that nature needs improvement. Marshes, for example, are demolished because they are considered cumbersome for human infrastructure; they are built upon for the improvement of human activity. Women experience the same phenomenon of being improved upon through a hyperfixation on certain body parts. Therefore, women are encouraged to improve their bodies, whether it is plastic surgery or intense dieting, to satisfy the male gaze in order to make their beauty bankable. For this reason, Atwood posits in her essay “The Female Body” that the female body goes through a process of fragmentation. “It sells diet plans and diamonds, and desire in tiny crystal bottles. Is this the face that launched a thousand products? You bet it is, but don’t get any funny big ideas, honey, that smile is a dime a dozen” (Atwood 3). Indeed, the emphasis on only a couple of features such as ‘the smile’ and ‘the face’ indicates that women are not perceived as humans but fragments of their anatomy are fetishized. These fetishized body parts generate wealth by entrapping women who feel they must reach its marketed beauty ideal. Therefore, Atwood suggests that capitalistic trade targets women through the fetishization of their bodies. Much like the marshes being constructed for activity, women are also pressured to improve upon their physique. Thus Atwood creates a situation of intersection where women and the environment experience the same form of exploitation originating from capitalism. Furthermore, critic Soraya Copeley supports the notion of the women-environment intersection in her article “Re-reading Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood: Eco-feminist Perspectives on Nature and Technology.” Copley explores the philosophy of ecofeminism stated by the Australian sociologist Ariel Salleh “on the domination of nature and domination of Woman “as nature”” (Copeley 1). Through this statement, one can argue that nature is being feminized, therefore humanized by way of womanhood. As well as including women as part of the natural body of this planet, therefore implying that they are naturally connected. Hence, they are both vulnerable to the exploitative nature of patriarchy. This creates a framework where the female body is principally harmed in an environment that is being degraded by mechanisms of patriarchy, which foreshadows the themes explored in Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale.

The speculative groundwork of The Handmaid’s Tale reflects upon the future dangers women face in a patriarchy that adheres to its archaic forms such as religious extremism. The previous structure of patriarchal capitalism explored earlier demonstrates how women and the environment are perceived as exploitable. This initial perception arguably foreshadows the position of the female body in The Handmaid’s Tale. Due to a collapsed environment caused by radioactivity which causes infertility, the functions of the fertile female body such as reproduction, are needed in order to sustain a society. Women are, therefore, turned into handmaids. Offred, the main character, documents her experience as a handmaid as she is forced into sexual servitude throughout the novel. Atwood explores how the female body becomes a paramount factor for survival, yet the status of women greatly regresses. For this reason, the patriarchy in order to guarantee a semblance of authority and control over this environmental catastrophe, relapses to its more repressive and archaic structures of religious extremism in order to police female bodies. Indeed, this takes on the form of interpreting religious texts in the literal sense. This is seen through the religious role of the handmaids presented by Atwood in the preface of her novel. Indeed, the handmaid embodies the role of providing children due to infertility, a concept that first originated in the Genesis where Rachel suggests having her children through the body of her maid Bilhah. (Atwood) Through the use of this intertextuality Atwood builds the argument that the position of women as exploitable is justified by a literal reading of the Bible. Therefore, Gilead imposes the role of the handmaid on fertile women based on this religious archaic culture. This is further supported by Judith Butler, a gender theorist who writes, “the existence and facticity of the material or natural dimensions of the body are not denied, but reconceived as distinct from the process by which the body comes to bear cultural meanings” (Butler 520). This suggests that the natural functions of the body are conceived through a cultural perspective. Therefore, the role of the handmaid is paramount in a patriarchal society; its cultural meaning validates religious extremism within a radioactive environment that causes infertility.

Moreover, this cultural interpretation expands to the different female characters in The Handmaid’s Tale. For this reason the women are categorized, the handmaids in red, the marthas in green, the commanders’ wives blue, and the aunts in khaki. This color is indicative of the characteristic Gliead is exploiting. The aunts in khaki, for example, indicate women that support the patriarchal order through the act of indoctrinating the handmaids. The color khaki suggests a militarized character, thus symbolizing a soldier figure. Offred first describes her experience with the Aunts at the beginning of the novel: “Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs through their leather belts” (Atwood 4). This interaction is tyrannical, emphasized by the presence of cattle prods, as well as implying that the Aunts serve a role akin to a prison warden. These prods provide a phallic symbolism which is used as a form of violent subjugation of women. This is darkly ironic considering that it is women enacting patriarchal dominance on each other. However, much like the handmaids, Atwood demonstrates that the Aunts also serve an important role through their involvement with Gilead. Their cultural identity as women and their implicitness with religious extremisms validates the patriarchal authority Gilead, as well as the exploitation of menstruating women.

This situation women face in Gilead echoes back to Copeley’s ecofeminism in the philosophical sense. Indeed, The Handmaid’s Tale resonates with Feminist Environmental Philosophy, which states that women are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters, because not only are their lives affected by contemporary environmental issues, their status is also impacted (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). Therefore, the functions of patriarchy that exploit resources and cause environmental problems, create a framework of destruction that is detrimental to women physically but also culturally. The speculative narrative of The Handmaid’s Tale highlights the latter, it foreshadows the future perception of female bodies that can result from a completely destroyed environment. This further creates an interdependent nature between women and the environment.

However, one can argue that it is harmful to create an intersection between the problems that encompass feminist and environmental issues. According to the rhetoric of Feminist Environmental Philosophy, stated by Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy– ecofeminism is used as a term to cover a broad category of issues, sometimes deemed incompatible with each other, concerning human socioeconomic status but also the state of the environment. It is indeed incompatible, according to Anne Archambault, who writes in “A Critique of Ecofeminism” that “The claim that women are biologically closer to nature reinforces the patriarchal ideology of domination and limits ecofeminism’s effectiveness” (Archambault 20). The logic of attributing the female body as inherently part of nature reinforces the process of otherization, considering that both women and nature have historically already been branded as ‘other’. For this reason, Archebault’s argument challenges Atwood’s recognition of women and the environment as interconnected by implying that it can further justify Western culture’s dominion over both actors. Indeed, Atwood’s analysis in “The Female Body” is quick to identify women as a ‘natural resource’ which furthers the narrative that women are naturally on the margins alongside the environment. Furthermore, this idea of connecting women to resources in a way invites the notion of exploitation, suggesting that the female body is biologically designed to give and sustain. This emphasizes a gender binary. Ecofeminists tend to attribute female bodily characteristics to nature such as ovulation and pregnancy which invalidate male figures as part of nature. (Archambault.) One can argue that interconnecting women and nature based on female bodily functions is another form of regressing them to their bodies. It is almost akin to the same sector of philosophy seen by the religious extremism of Gilead– regressing women to their bodily functions.

In “The Female Body” Atwood showcases through the use intersection how both women and the environment are subjugated by patriarchy.  The Handmaid’s Tale provides the speculative outcome of this subjugation and foreshadows its future impacts on women. For this reason, a question arises in “Impatient Griselda”—should there be an alternate societal system instead of a patriarchy? “Impatient Griselda” is a frame story in which humanity is in an apocalyptic radioactive environment in which aliens are helping them survive. Throughout Atwood’s story one alien narrates a revised version of a fairy tale to a quarantined audience. This dynamic of human-alien encounter challenges the static concept of gender binary within a patriarchy. One way Atwood demonstrates this is by having the alien address each individual as ‘madame-sir.’ “Thank you, Sir or Madam. I use both because quite frankly I can’t tell the difference. We do not have such limited arrangements on our planet” (Atwood 1). The aliens immediately create a groundwork of questioning the original gender binary of the patriarchy. They are indifferent to learning the appropriate gender binary, therefore implying that it holds no great importance. Indeed, the aliens are more concerned with providing a form of solace to a human race that can no longer live in the toxic environment of their creation. For this reason, this intervention by the alien race suggests that they recognize that the environment has been in a position of exploitation. Consequently, humanity must now learn from its mistakes and learn to rebuild their world sustainably. Following this dystopic thread, the short story “Impatient Griselda” entertains the dystopian tropes of survival and renewal. Butler discusses this concept of survival in her article. The suggestion is that there is an element to survival when performing one’s gender. This is maintained through strategies such as creating a gender binary for the survival of patriarchal culture (Butler 522). This adds nuance to the human-alien dynamic. Humanity wants to hold on to their gender identity out of self-preservation within a dystopian environment. However, Atwood implies through the voice of the alien that holding on to norms such as gender binary in the midst of a radioactive catastrophe is pointless. Therefore, the alien entities present an alternate version of a societal structure.

Furthermore, an alien tells the story of how a cruel Duke takes advantage of a woman named Pat. This woman’s sister, Imp, decides to enact revenge on the cruel Duke. She does so by pretending to be Pat in order to kill the duke. The conventional narrative of the story is disrupted by the alien as it modifies the fairytale to fit its own culture and perspective. They do this by ending the story abruptly with Pat and Imp eating the Duke after killing him. Indeed, this causes some distress in the human audience due to the unhuman nature of the action, forcing the alien to justify itself: “Yes, Madam-Sir, I admit that this was a cross-cultural moment. I was simply saying what I myself would have done in their place. But storytelling does help us understand one another across our social and historical and evolutionary chasms, don’t you think” (Atwood 4)? Storytelling, for this alien, then becomes a vehicle for transformation and learning. They give the abused women the ultimate power because of her position of exploitation in the patriarchy. Therefore, the aliens become akin to the cyborgs discussed in Copley’s article: “The figure of the cyborg thus demands that humans confront the ‘otherness’ within ourselves, breaking open the rigid and constricting categories into which we have been forced by a phallocentric system, and which work to keep us in fear of all those who are different, fueling the capitalist system” (Copley 8). The aliens recognize how both the environment and women have been exploited within the patriarchy. In response, they challenge the beliefs that led to this exploitation through an indifference to gender binary, as well as reaffirming female power. Therefore, Atwood embodies them as a symbol of an alternate society that can be built upon the toxic remnants of a patriarchal society.

In conclusion, Atwood illuminates the subjugation of women and the environment through the use of intersection. She does this by offering a gradation of analysis of the interconnected nature of the woman and the environment that expands throughout three of her works– the essay “The Female Body,” The Handmaid’s Tale, and the short story “Impatient Griselda.” Atwood posits in “The Female Body” that both women and the environment experience the same form of exploitation under the patriarchal instrument of capitalism. This exploitation foreshadows the speculative outcome of The Handmaid’s Tale where women are further impacted by the result of exploitation; religious extremism comes at the forefront as a method to sustain patriarchal control. Finally, Atwood’s short story “Impatient Griselda” explores alien entities that challenge the patriarchy through their apathy to static gender binary, and offer a new segway for an alternate societal system.

Work Cited

Atwood, Margaret. “THE FEMALE BODY.” Michigan Quarterly Review, vol. 60, no. 1, 2021, pp. 147–50.

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. First Anchor Books Edition, 1991.

Atwood, Margaret. “Margaret Atwood: ‘Impatient Griselda,’ a Short Story.” New York Times (Online), 2020.

Archambault, Anne. “A Critique of Ecofeminism.” CANADIAN WOMAN STUDIESILES CAHIERS DE LA FEMME, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 19-22.

Butler, Judith. “Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory.” Theatre Journal (Washington, D.C.), vol. 40, no. 4, 1988, pp. 519–31, doi:10.2307/3207893.

Copley, Soraya. “Rereading Marge Piercy and Margaret Atwood: Eco-Feminist Perspectives on Nature and Technology.” Critical Survey (Oxford, England), vol. 25, no. 2, 2013, pp. 40–56, doi:10.3167/cs.2013.250204.

Turner, David P. “Capitalism and the Global Environment.” Taming the Technosphere, https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/technosphere/2021/01/15/capitalism-and-the-global-environment/#:~:text=A%20capitalist%20organizes%20labor%20to,possibly%20for%20expansion%20of %20production.

“Feminist Environmental Philosophy.” Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-environmental/. Accessed 9 Nov 2023.