The Handmaid's Tale

"A necessary warning and exploration of possible futures."

"This leads us straight to The Handmaid’s Tale . This is the book which addresses that idea head on. Atwood takes all the hard information about gender inequality that she sees around her and then turns it up a few notches. The reason this book still resonates is that she did such a good job of imagining what it would look like. She describes a kind of social conservatism that is very recognisable in Trump’s America—or that Trump and Pence have brought in with them. “In Gilead there are no good ways to be a woman, only less bad ways” She describes a world in which women are not just second class citizens but are, at best, chattels. Where not only is violence against women and girls pervasive (as it is in the real world now) but that it is also state-sanctioned. It is in our world now in some respects but, in the book, it is sanctioned in a horrible and ritualised way. As in our current world women are viewed and used for their reproductive powers. Again, Atwood turns it up a few notches in Gilead. Progress is not linear—rights and progress can roll back, and in the USA today we are seeing a concerted effort to roll back women’s rights. “Men stand to benefit from equality just as much as women” Women exist as a global underclass to varying degrees—some women are doubly or triply disadvantaged by race or disability. There are different classes of women in Gilead too in that there are no good ways to be a woman, only less bad ways. Even so, she has been criticised for not being an ‘intersectional feminist’—a term that hadn’t even been coined at the time she was writing! In my book, I interviewed Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw who invented the term ‘intersectional feminism’ and it’s an incredibly useful tool to understanding the world. I was talking about how we need progress to be. Progress is both fragile and complex. We want a world that has the flexibility and tensile strength of a spider’s web which means building a culture that is resilient and able to deal with antithetical ideas. If we do create a gender-equal world how would we protect it from influences that might be contrary to gender equality? I absolutely think that equality is for everyone. Gender equality isn’t some side issue that only affects women. Yes, we feel the effect of inequality more keenly than men do but men stand to benefit from equality just as much as women. There are many ways in which men are disadvantaged by the current situation. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter In all the books I’ve chosen there tend to be more warnings than glimmers of optimism. And some fairly grim warnings. But I am an optimist and I think that the route-map to reach a more equal future and society is laid out and it is where we are heading. It may not be a complete utopia but I think it is a place where most people, if asked, would prefer to live."

"I only read The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, very recently."

"I reread Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale' as a form of fact-check against the Hulu series and it did feel as if I was reading it for the first time."

"The first time I read "The Handmaid's Tale," I immediately thought, "I'd like to meet the person who wrote this." She's a brilliant writer and I love her values."

""The Handmaid's Tale," by Margaret Atwood. A fantastic book!"

"my beloved English teacher gave me a copy of 'The Handmaid's Tale' to read and write about. I became obsessed and read all of Atwood's 1970s novels."