The Handmaid's Tale presents an extreme example of sexism and misogyny by presenting the complete objectification of women in Gilead society. However, by also highlighting the mistreatment of women in cultures preceding and following the age of Gilead, Margaret Atwood suggests that sexism and misogyny are deeply rooted in every society and that serious and deliberate attention must be paid to these forms of discrimination in order to eliminate them. One of the most obvious examples of sexism that Atwood presents can be seen in his presentation of pre-Gilead society. At the beginning of chapter 7, Offred contemplates the words “lie” and “secular.” Remember the word "fuck" as a colloquial term used to describe the action of having sexual intercourse, for example: "Men also said, I'd like to fuck. Although sometimes they said, I'd like to fuck." his." Atwood's purpose in presenting it was to portray the objectification of women by men even in a pre-Gilead community. Men often express the reasonable, but considerably sinful, desire to "get laid," which describes the sex not as an act of love or for procreation, but as an act committed for the sole purpose of pleasure and, ultimately, Lust, one of the Seven Capital Sins classified by the Catholic Church. however, it requires a female counterpart, and since the act is, in this case, purely for recreational purposes, the female counterpart that men would choose would tend to be physically attractive and/or sexually attractive, hence the phrase "I'd like to fuck her" , which suggests that a man would prefer one woman over another, basing his choice not on her uniqueness of being, her mental individuality, or her favorable personality traits, but… middle of the paper… recognition strengthens, is insensitive and leaves out the expression of love that should accompany the act. Ultimately, this leads back to the original thesis that misogyny leads to nothing more than the degradation of a human being to mere existence as an object with a function, leaving aside a person's intelligence, emotion and personality. “The Handmaid’s Tale” presents misogyny within Gilead as a government policy that debases women in order to promote functionality. Such extreme implications, as Atwood suggests, are echoed in cultures before Gilead, and even in those cultures that are present in our world. Atwood's writings also suggest that sexism is prevalent and deeply rooted in society, even outside of Gilead, where its entrenchment may be unintentional. Works Cited Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood