By wresting from them their will to choose and forcing upon them their authority, doctors commit acts of political oppression. Women and other oppressed groups of people are particularly at risk for being victimized by such a system.

             The Handmaid's Tale presents a similar scenario and similar themes. The protagonist, handmaiden Offred, has also been beaten down by external circumstances and like Connie Ramos, her child has been wrested from her life too. Moreover, because of their circumstances, both Connie and Offred must live without any genuine intimacy and both women remain powerfully alone. Their aloneness underscores the pervasiveness of patriarchal political systems: their ability to bore into the psychic realities of all women. Like Connie, Offred has been labeled, her individuality suppressed. Offred is not exactly in a mental institution but she is semi-imprisoned, unable to do anything without permission. Both their lives are absolutely restricted and both women are portrayed as tools of male-dominated and oppressive societies. Women might be participants in the social structures within the patriarchal society but they are not the root cause of it. Both of these novels address the ability of patriarchal systems to depress the minds and the bodies of women. .

             Furthermore, both Connie and Offred confront matters related to their physical bodies, especially reproduction. In both books power over a woman's body becomes the most immediate, most basic, form of political power. Connie witnesses the connection between political power and reproductive rights most poignantly in Mattapoiset; Offred experiences the connection first hand as a handmaid. Offred's job as a handmaid explicitly illustrates the importance of reproduction to politics. Offred has lost one of the most fundamental rights of any human being: the rights to her body. Other people tell her when to have sex and with whom, and her sexuality becomes the property of those in power.