Religious Fundamentalisms and the Systematic Oppression of Women

Molly Swets examines the growing global threat of fundamentalists who use religion as a political tool to gain control. Using Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale which satirizes the 1980s movement by the US Christian New Right that called for women to return to the home and speculates the disastrous results for women if this call were taken to an extreme Swets compares Atwood's fictional theocratic society with contemporary fundamentalist organizations to reveal startling similari­ties in the methods used to oppress women: confining them to domestic and reproductive duties creating a strict dress code and restricting access to education and to the interpretation of sacred texts. Swets then exposes women's culpability in supporting fundamentalist groups in order to gain some power and control in a chaotic environment. Through her research Swets approaches Atwood's novel as social pro­phesy and as an indictment of any group that uses religion as a tool to control and oppress women.