The paper is an attempt to bring out the oppression of women as presented in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)while comparing with the theories of, Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) presented in The Second Sex (1949) which leads to better understanding of sex and gender. In The Second Sex the ideology focuses mainly on the   oppression through social structure which confines women under the title of Other to man’s self. She believes that woman cannot be a simple biological category, while  she also  asserts that womanhood is imposed on woman by civilization. As presented by her, the fundamental social meaning of woman is Other. She believes that biology is the main source for woman’s oppression, within patriarchal society, she challenges the gender equality  discourse in which women are defined based on their biology and also believes that women face oppression and exploitation because of the sexual deviation in men’s mind. She does not accept the heterosexuality as the norm for sexual relations as she considers them biased. The paper also suggests how Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale is full of insights on feminist issues such as loss of identity, subordination of woman in a male dominated society and women’s exploitation in a society where woman’s body is treated as an object – a tool for reproduction. Gender parity, and pitfalls of patriarchal system are main causes of women’s oppression.

Keywords: Gender , Oppression, loss of identity, Patriarchy, Sex and Gender, Sexuality.