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d oppression. The essence of using a feminist lens is to enable the discovery of how people interact within systems and possibly offer solutions to confront and eradicate oppressive systems and structures. Feminist theory considers the lived experience of any people, not just women, with an emphasis on oppression. There may not be a consensus on where feminist theory fits as a theory or paradigm, disruption of oppression is a core concept of feminist work. The conclusion can be drawn that feminism is a tenet to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. 

According to Deirdre Burton, Marxism and socialism are key components in the heritage of feminist theory since feminist theory has its roots in Marxism and can be traced to the equality movements, but specifically looks to Engles’ work as one possible starting point. Burton notes that, “Origin of the Family and commentaries on it were central texts to the feminist movement in its early years because of the felt need to understand the origins and subsequent development of the subordination of the female sex” (Burton 165). Marxist and Feminist theories applied to writing open up the blooms of context that the author writes in between the spaces of semantics. Strengthened by analysis, weakened by assumptions, each theory offers insight into novels like The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments. A potentially whole-bodied analysis would include parts of two or more theories to remove weaknesses and strengthen the analysis. Feminist and Marxist lenses dissect the effects on women and the working class when women are part of the manipulation process in order to further the agenda of men. Thus, work in feminist theory, including research regarding gender equality, is ongoing.

2.2 Michel Foucault’s Power Theory

Michel Foucault, the French postmodernist, has been hugely influential in shaping understandings of power. Foucault’s conception of power is a controversial theory that has provoked a vast array of discussions since its first conceptualization in the 1970s. Since that time, many scholars have written against or in favor of his specific notion of power and it has faced different types of critiques. One of the main ideas that develop as a direct consequence of his theory is the notion of resistance against power. 

A key point about Foucault’s approach to power is that it transcends politics and sees power as an everyday, socialized, and embodied phenomenon. For some, Foucault’s concept of power is so elusive and removed from agency or structure that there seems to be little scope for practical action. But he has been hugely influential in pointing to the ways that norms can be so embedded as to be beyond our perception – causing us to discipline ourselves without any willful coercion from others. Contrary to many interpretations, Foucault believed in possibilities for action and resistance, to challenge power is not a matter of seeking some “absolute truth”, but “of detaching the power of truth from the forms of hegemony, social, economic, and cultural, within which it operates at the present time” (Foucault and Rabinow 75). Discourse can be a site of both power and resistance, with the scope to “evade, subvert or contest strategies of power” (Gaventa 3).

CHAPTER 3 LITERATURE REVIEW .......................... 11

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