Gilead enforces strict gender roles by arguing that they are based in biology, which in turn affects how its women see themselves, suggesting that strict enforcement of gender roles and norms can lead women to have a lower view of their own capacities.
Although Gilead enforces strict gender roles that it argues are biologically determined, the novel’s female characters demonstrate that women can do any task just as well as men, which suggests that narrowly defined gender roles are ultimately baseless, instilled only by society. Even so, the female characters are more than capable of doing “men’s work,” and are completely unhindered by their gender, in spite of Gilead’s beliefs. Because of this belief, Gilead’s laws strictly enforce gender roles and contradicting them is punishable by public execution. Men, Gilead believes, are intelligent, sophisticated, and natural leaders, while women are presumed to be stupid, infantile, and weak, only fit for giving birth or doing chores in the home. Gilead’s social structure is premised on its belief that men and women are unequal, which the leadership argues is biologically evident.
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