We are two-legged wombs
The phrase "We are two-legged wombs" is the starkest articulation of the Gilead regime's ideology regarding Handmaids. It reduces a woman's entire identity and value to her reproductive organs, framing her as a walking, breathing vessel for gestation and nothing more. This dehumanizing definition is not merely a private thought but a public, enforced identity that governs every aspect of a Handmaid's life, from her red dress and white wings to her prescribed movements and interactions. The phrase encapsulates the core of the regime's biopolitical project: to control female bodies for the purpose of repopulation, treating women as ambulatory chalices or, as the narrator also puts it, "sacred vessels."
Origin and Ideological Context
The phrase emerges from the narrator's internal reflection on her own status. She explicitly states, "We are two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices." This self-definition is a direct response to the regime's systematic stripping of her former identity. The ideology is reinforced by the Aunts at the Red Center, who teach the Handmaids to think of themselves as "pearls" and "seeds," valuable only for their rarity and potential to bear fruit. Aunt Lydia's instruction to "think of yourselves as seeds" and her warning that "some of you will fall on dry ground or thorns" frames the Handmaids' bodies as agricultural plots, to be cultivated for a harvest they will not own. The regime's logic, as articulated by the Commander, is that women are "containers" whose "insides" are important, while the outside can become "hard and wrinkled, for all they care, like the shell of a nut." This ideology is codified in the Ceremony, where the Handmaid lies between the Wife's legs, her body used as a passive conduit for the Commander's seed, a ritual that explicitly denies her any agency or pleasure.
The Reduction of Identity
The phrase "two-legged wombs" signifies a complete erasure of the Handmaid's past, her name, her relationships, and her individuality. The narrator, Offred, is stripped of her former name and given a patronymic that marks her as the property of her Commander. She reflects on how her body is no longer an instrument of her own will—"an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will"—but has become a "cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am." This central object is her uterus, the only part of her that the regime values. The tattoo on her ankle, a "passport in reverse," is a permanent brand that marks her as a "national resource," too important and scarce to ever fade into another landscape. The prohibition on mirrors, makeup, and hand lotion further reinforces this reduction: the outside of her body is irrelevant, only its reproductive capacity matters.
The Experience of Being a Vessel
The lived experience of being a "two-legged womb" is one of profound alienation and constant physical and psychological scrutiny. The monthly medical exams are a ritual of inspection, where the doctor deals with "a torso only," her face hidden by a suspended sheet. The narrator's entire existence is organized around her menstrual cycle, which she watches for "blood, fearfully, for when it comes it means failure." The failure to conceive is not a personal disappointment but a systemic failure, a breach of contract that could lead to being declared an Unwoman and shipped to the Colonies. The Ceremony itself is the ultimate performance of this role: the narrator lies "fully clothed except for the healthy white cotton underdrawers," while the Commander "fucks" the "lower part" of her body. She distinguishes this from "making love," "copulating," or even "rape," because "nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for." This is the terrible paradox of the Handmaid's existence: she has consented to her own dehumanization as the only alternative to death or exile.
Resistance and the Limits of the Definition
Despite the regime's totalizing definition, the narrator and other Handmaids find small ways to resist being reduced to mere wombs. The private ritual of buttering their skin is an act of defiance, a way to maintain the belief that they will "be touched again, in love or desire." The secret meetings with Nick, the whispered conversations with Ofglen, and the narrator's own internal storytelling are all assertions of a self that exists beyond her reproductive function. The phrase "We are two-legged wombs" is thus both a statement of the regime's power and a site of struggle. The narrator's ability to articulate this definition, to analyze it, and to feel the gap between it and her own sense of self is itself a form of resistance. The phrase haunts the narrative as a constant reminder of what the regime intends her to be, even as she fights to remain something more.
