By Katelyn Yang, VI Form

What a Woman Is

Student-Submitted Note: After reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, our class was tasked to write a 4-6 page essay about an important theme of the story or design a piece of media and write a 2-3 page reflection on your piece. I decided to construct historical notes based on the comfort women of Singapore during the Japanese Occupation while comparing them to the Handmaids from The Handmaid’s Tale.

Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a dystopian fiction and feminist political novel. It is set in the near future and illustrates a group of right-wing extremists who usurp power and institute the Republic of Gilead, a monarchical state of omnipotence. Gilead’s social structure is constitutionally constructed so that men are favored over women. Each woman in Gilead is designated a stereotypical woman job, such as cooking, sex, and reproduction. 

The Handmaids, who belong to the lowest class in Gilead, have no control over their lives. Subject to specific gender roles, Handmaids must adhere to these roles due to social and religious constraints. Women in Gilead are essentially men’s property. Once a month, Offred, like the other Handmaids, is forced to engage in sexual intercourse with the Commander to help reproduce and help the rapidly declining population.

During the Ceremony, while Offred and the Commander are having sex, she describes the Commander as “fucking…the lower part of my [Offred’s] body” (Atwood 94), suggesting that they are not “making love” without any emotional connection, precisely what Gilead wants. The propaganda of Gilead frames Offred’s womb as an essential part of society, where she has no bodily autonomy.

Just like the other Handmaids, Offred’s body is used solely as a womb. While the Commander is “fucking” her, Offred thinks about closing her eyes and “[thinks] of England. But this is not England. I wish he would hurry up” (Atwood 94). The Ceremony calls attention to how much Offred does not want to be in this situation. She uses meaningless things to distract herself, which shows how detached she is from her own body and that she believes her body is used only for reproduction in Gilead. None of the sexual encounters Offred has with the Commander provide Offred with pleasure or benefit, and she is at the hands of the men in Gilead. 

Parallel to the comfort women of Singapore during the Imperial Japanese Occupation, Offred and the other Handmaids are exploited and used as “government-chartered human-trafficking sexual slavery.” Forced to have sex with the Commander to fulfill her role as a Handmaid, Ms. Kim Bok Dong’s experience is similar to Handmaid Offred’s story.

In the “Historical Notes on ‘Comfort Women’: Singapore’s Darkest Period,” Ms. Kim was also used as a comfort woman or sex slave. She was raped against her will by the Imperial Japanese military while fighting for her life by a totalitarian government. 

The Ceremony brainwashes Offred into believing that what happened to her is “not making love….Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on that [Offred] haven’t signed up for” (Atwood 94). Offred distracts herself from the Ceremony by looking for the positives in her situation. She thinks she is “Maybe going crazy, and this is some new kind of therapy” (Atwood 94); with therapy meant to improve and purify oneself, she connects the sex to something that she can forget about herself and keep herself sane. 

This thought is as twisted as the act she does with the Commander, with his wife in the room, but it perfectly fits societal normality in the Republic of Gilead. Offred is only going through these motions as it is expected of her, not because she chooses to. 

Unlike Gilead, Ms. Kim never thought about being a comfort woman positively. Instead, after getting raped for the first time, she wanted to end her life through alcohol poisoning but failed. Offred and Ms. Kim are reduced to their fertility and treated as nothing more than their ovaries and a womb. 

One would undeniably pick the latter between a gradual death and a life with very limited liberties. The choice a woman makes does not make these decisions less forced. What they go through is still rape, even if it is the next best feasible option. Both stories highlight the same idea: even if there is a “choice” to become a sex slave, it is seldom an actual choice, and usually, that “choice” has multiple complications hidden behind it. 

Katelyn Yang is a boarding student from Singapore and a member of the St. Mark’s class of 2024. Katelyn hopes to pursue her passions, from leading the tennis varsity team to exploring the worlds of STEM, arts, and design and working with at-risk children.