Topic Proposal

 The guiding question that would help me understand Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tail is why only the women were tested for fertility and not them men. I feel that if it was so important for their society to produce then why didn't they test the men to so that the two fertile people could get together to produce a child. I want to learn if there is a major difference in the fertility of women and men over time. I plan to research records and statistics regarding fertility of both women and men over time to help with this paper. If there is a major difference between the fertility of women and men then I want to see if Atwood portrayed them completely. I chose this topic because there were several instances in the book where Atwood talked about ways to show if women were fertile and not, but not if men were. It confused and irritated me reading these parts because it seems so simple to just test the men as well and get two fertile people together. I know that male dominance will never go away in our society because it has been around so long. I realize that in this book testing men for fertility would cause a dent in the male ego or dominance. I believe that if the "perfect" society was really striving for children that much which was emphasized by the book they would test male fertility as well. I feel like researching this topic would help me better understand why Atwood choose not to write about men being tested as well. It would put a lot of instances in the book together in a way that makes sense to me. I plan to put a little of everything above into my paper and hopefully when I am done understand the book a little bit more.

talk.org