I mean, outside of the Aunts, that's basically what happens. Fertile women are used to produce children as Handmaids. Infertile women become Marthas and used for manual labour or become Jezebels and used for sex (notably Jezebels are deliberately sterilized). Wives maintain their social status solely by the social status of their husbands. Wives of important husbands are effectively idle, unimportant men have "econowives" who are expected to serve all purposes.MithrandirOlorin wrote: ↑Wed Aug 14, 2024 6:50 pmThe way I see it, if the proposed inciting incident of The Handmaiden's Tale actually happened and actually result in some type of Patriarchal Fascist society, whether it was a Religious Fascism or a Secular Fascism it would result in the infertile women being either experimented or allowed to continue living only as prostitutes if they're attractive enough. Just like what would probably happen to Trans Women and Intersex people.
The fact that you look at how women are divided up into different categories and see it as: "imagining a world where the women who can't have children are more privileged then the women who can." is part of the reason why Gilead did this. Women are divided into categories so they see themselves as different groups. Handmaids are scorned by the other groups, but at the same time if they bear a child they will never be sent to the radioactive colonies. The groups are broken apart so they don't see themselves as one mass that is being oppressed by Gilead.