The Handmaid's Tale Lesson Plan

The Commander remarks to Offred that women think one and one and one and one don't equal four, and Offred comes to agree with this statement (though perhaps not the way the Commander originally meant it). Why?

The Commander may have meant, originally, that women cannot consider a situation within a larger context, or that women get hung up on details rather than seeing the whole picture, or he may have simply meant that he thinks women are bad at math. But Offred sees this generalization in a different light. She says, “What the Commander said is true. One and one and one and one doesn't equal four. Each one remains unique, there is no way of joining them together. They...