Biopolitical Binaries: gender and power in Margaret Atwood’s utopias

Abstract

Margaret Atwood’s writing is preoccupied with the level of autonomy that women are afforded in contemporary society, particularly with respect to the site of the female body. Many of Atwood’s texts engage with the discourse surrounding women’s reproductive choices, highlighting how political intervention in female bodily autonomy can dramatically impact both individual lives and large scale populations. This thesis focuses on Atwood’s representation of women’s bodily autonomy in her fictional utopias, by engaging with Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower and biopolitics. Specifically looking at three utopian narratives, The Handmaid's Tale (1985), "Freeforall" (1987), and the MaddAddam trilogy (2003, 2009, 2013), this analysis examines different iterations of how patriarchal neoliberalism negatively impacts the future, particularly for people that identify as women. Each of the texts I have selected to analyse depicts a different fictional utopia that stems from a founding society governed by patriarchal neoliberalism. In the MaddAddam trilogy, Atwood has created a future in which patriarchal neoliberalism has been left unchallenged by any other model of governance and has mutated into a hyperreal version of itself. The Handmaid’s Tale and "Freeforall" both depict societies that overthrow patriarchal neoliberalism with religious conservatism. In The Handmaid’s Tale this results in patriarchal theocracy, and in "Freeforall" a matriarchal version of the same. Populations in each of these texts are controlled either overtly or covertly via the biological processes of birth, reproduction, death, and illness. Through control of birth and reproduction, populations can be grown or restricted, and moulded to suit any ideological preference. Controlling birth in patriarchal societies means controlling women. Through control of death and illness, populations can be culled or shaped, coerced into amenable forms that suit a particular ideological preference. In the MaddAddam trilogy, that preference is for a population that thrives on never-ending consumption and waste, reliant on binary hierarchical oppression that constantly categorises everything and everyone in groups of superior/inferior. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the preference is for a surface population of white people of the appropriate religious affiliation, with an underclass of “lesser” persons to perform undesirable labour. Finally, in "Freeforall" the preference is for a chaste, healthy population that unquestioningly obeys the doctrines of the religious ruling class. Through the examination of the biopolitics within these texts, this thesis considers how differing forms of biopower affect Atwood’s characters, especially those identifying as female.