Abstract
Despite all variables, the subjugation of the female figure has always been the constant in the conceptualisation of patriarchal utopias. To ensure that subjugation women must undergo a process of reformation and surrender into normative sororities that are at the mercy of the state. It is argued here that such patriarchal utopias involve the elimination of solidarity with and between members of the sororal collective. This ensures the isolation of women and, consequently, eliminates the emancipation of womanhood from patriarchal idealisations. Sororities without solidarity are subjected to a comparative analysis of various classical utopian/dystopian texts and Atwood’s feminist dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale in order to foreground the problem concerning the construction of normative female beings. Moreover, the figure of (e)merging women in contemporary feminist utopian/dystopian discourses paves the way for female empowerment within patriarchal society by combining sorority and solidarity.
Highlights
Despite all variables, the subjugation of the female figure has always been the constant in the conceptualisation of patriarchal utopias
Without questioning earlier attempts at answering such a question, this study suggests that patriarchal utopia is maintained at the cost of female solidarity, this being the one quality that, when lost, causes the distortion – but not complete removal – of the aforementioned features
The great Mother becomes divinised thanks to her asexualisation, as all inhabitants of Herland come from a single virginmother. This “holy sisterhood” (76) perpetuates the patriarchal sorority of virgin-mothers, and, in so doing, it presents certain discrepancies among Herland’s citizens that are illustrated by the external narrator. While this utopia acknowledges the solidarity reserved to Woman in general, it can be observed that there is a certain lack of solidarity towards individual women inside the sorority, who are eventually muted by the female normative identity of the utopian state
Summary
The subjugation of the female figure has always been the constant in the conceptualisation of patriarchal utopias. Solidarity, desexualisation, patriarchal utopia, The Handmaid’s Tale, (e)merging women The power enjoyed by female individuals in the matrilineal community was to be restricted, as their fluid and ambivalent identity as well as their mighty sexuality could endanger the permanence of male control in a patriarchal utopia.
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