Women Forbidden to Work
For centuries, women were not allowed to work and earn money. The only way women could earn their own income was if they were prostitutes or “Fallen Women”. These women were often unwed mothers, or grew up in abusive circumstances that lead to them turning to prostitution in order to survive. Even though it was a necessity, they were still ostracized by society. Charles Dickens was one of the first public figures to sympathize with fallen women, and include them as characters in his novels, like Oliver Twist. He paid for a rehabilitation house to help them turn their lives around. But this wasn’t purely out of the goodness of his heart. He interviewed fallen women to learn their life stories, in order to make his own writing about them more realistic.
Until the Industrial Revolution in the late 1800s, it was not common for women to work without shame. Even then, there were plenty of men who believed that women need to stay out of the workforce, and continue doing unpaid labor in their households while their husbands earn the money. It was also seen as something only lower-class women did. During World War I and World War II, it was far more common for women to pick up on jobs in the place of men. Even Queen Elizabeth went to work as a mechanic. This evolved public opinion that women from all walks of life could have careers. In some parts of the world, like Saudi Arabia, women are still not allowed to work.
In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are not allowed to work, even if they have a high level of education and useful skills. Even Serena Joy, a woman and wife of a commander who helped Gilead take over the United States, was later pushed out of her position and forced to stay at home. The Marthas and Handmaids do all of the housework and grocery shopping, so there is nothing for a wife to do except knit, and pray for a baby.