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While in Oryx and Crake, Margaret Atwood filters the demise of a high tech world through the eyes of Snowman/Jimmy, a romantic loser, in The Year of the Flood, she foregrounds two female perspectives, those of Toby and Ren, who are associated with an environmentalist cult, God's Gardeners. Like Snowman, Toby and Ren contemplate a scenario in which they are among the few humans left on earth; unlike him, they are not attacked by pigoons, but by the extremely dangerous Painball men who plan to shoot them. A female perspective does not presuppose female power. In The Year of the Flood, women are neither leaders nor decision makers as the futuristic society envisioned by the author is controlled by big corporations and male scientists and policed by corporate security forces. Instead, Atwood's female characters, who are prostitutes, trapeze dancers, depressed or disinterested mothers, counter girls at SecretBurgers, or spa cosmeticians, perform menial jobs and occupy peripheral positions in society. More than that, they are constantly threatened by male violence and forced to ward off men's sexual advances and assaults. While women's relationships with men usually fail and contribute to the women's defeats or deaths, the network of female relationships is more powerful and effective. Friendships among women that transcend age difference and social status replace the parental guidance and romantic love that seem to be lacking from the lives of Atwood's female protagonists and, thus, these friendships help them survive.
The causes that led to the moral collapse of the society and implicitly to the women's social degradation seem to be linked with what this futuristic society values the most-that is technological and scientific advancements. Art, literature, morals, and laws are considered antiquated fields that serve no immediate and practical purpose and therefore, are disregarded almost completely. This society is not a democracy in which the voices of the people are heard, but a place in which the interests of big corporations decide the fate of the majority. Along with the disappearance of the humanities as subjects for research and thought, comes the disintegration of the nuclear family. Most of the families described by Atwood are broken and the women and children are the first to suffer the consequences. The women who are able to...