Dismantling the matrix of oppression in Atwood's "the Testaments" and Parsipur's "Women without Men" (ACLA 2025)

Organizer: Marjan Heidari

Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments and Shahrnush Parsipur’s Women without Men may seem to be different works due to different settings and the writers’ backgrounds. The Testaments, written in 2019, narrates the lives of three women living in The Republic of Gilead, Atwood’s fictional society, but the situation five female characters witness in Women without Men is in Iran in the 1950s.In both novels, the reader finds the female characters suffer from patriarchal norms and oppressive laws imposed by society. These women challenge patriarchal narratives as well as dominant discourses to make spaces for their voices and perspectives which are disapproved by the authorities. Atwood and Parsipur provide their characters with some strategies to show the opposition, exert their identities, and survive despite the suffocating atmosphere. Although these two novels have been analyzed separately through the lens of feminism, this comparative analysis examines similar strategies employed by Atwood and Parsiour concerning Judith Butler’s concepts of performativity to explore how these female characters subvert traditional gender roles and challenge dominant narratives. Through a critical examination of both novels, this study explores how Atwood and Parsipur deploy performative strategies to enable their female characters to perform, subvert gender, and create new possibilities for resistance, agency as well as self-invention.