Building on Margaret Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tale", this essay discusses how insider-outsider dynamics can be entrenched in legal systems so as to marginalize an entire half of the population (the female one) and/or to build a totalitarian State. A comparison with Naomi Alderman's "The Power", in turn, helps reflect on how substituting ingrained unbalances of power with equal and opposite ones can never lead to a more fair and just society. Only legal frameworks built to support "bridging social capital" can actually achieve a better balance between the rights and aspirations of all social groups.
Visconti, A., La donna come "outsider". Oltre il totalitarismo di Gilead, in Musio, A. (ed.), Femminile, corpi e potere. Tre letture de 'Il racconto dell'Ancella', Mimesis, Milano-Udine 2025: <<IL CAFFÈ DEI FILOSOFI>>, 31- 73 [https://hdl.handle.net/10807/311081]
La donna come "outsider". Oltre il totalitarismo di Gilead
Visconti, Arianna
2025
Abstract
Building on Margaret Atwood's novel "The Handmaid's Tale", this essay discusses how insider-outsider dynamics can be entrenched in legal systems so as to marginalize an entire half of the population (the female one) and/or to build a totalitarian State. A comparison with Naomi Alderman's "The Power", in turn, helps reflect on how substituting ingrained unbalances of power with equal and opposite ones can never lead to a more fair and just society. Only legal frameworks built to support "bridging social capital" can actually achieve a better balance between the rights and aspirations of all social groups.
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