Discuss some ways in which Gilead gives more power to men than women and the society's ‎justification for this in the novel “Handmaid’s Tale.”‎

While Atwood asks a great many questions about gender conflict, she does not seem to provide readers with any concrete answers. Offred becomes more and more aware that as a man, Luke is on one side of the new regime, and she is on another, despite the fact that she believes he loves her. The Commander tries to explain to Offred why the new regime is better for men, and essentially admits that in order for it to be better for men, it must be worse for women. One of the most obvious questions is whether these feelings were simply repressed in the old society, or whether they were created by the new one. Would the Commander think the new regime was better if his survival was not bound up with his support of the new regime? Does Luke actually prefer the new way of life? Before he understood the new laws about divorce, how did he feel about the new laws curtailing the activities of women? Offred never asks, so the reader never knows the answers to these important questions.