Offred’s mother is a second-wave radical feminist. In the Birthmobile, following the birth of Ofwarren’s daughter, Offred contemplates:
By now I’m wrung out, exhausted, My breasts are painful, they’re leaking a little. Fake milk, it happens this way with some of us. We sit on our benches, facing one another, as we are transported; we’re without emotion now, almost without feeling, we might be bundles of red cloth. We ache. Each of us holds in our lap a phantom, a ghost baby. What confronts us, now the excitement’s over, is our own failure. Mother, I think. Wherever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a women’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies. (127; last paragraph, ch. 21)
What does Offred mean by a “women’s culture” in this context, and how does it compare with her mother’s radical feminist vision?