The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, published in 1983, is the non-fiction book I have chosen to review and relate to the material studied in the course, Cross-Cultural Social Work Practice. Margaret Atwood is a well-known, critically approved, best-seller artist who’s created some masterpieces such as The Robber Bride and Cat’s Eye.
The Handmaid's Tale is set in the futuristic Republic of Gilead. Sometime in the future, conservative Christians take control of the United States and establish a dictatorship. Most women in Gilead are infertile after repeated exposure to pesticides, nuclear waste, or leakages from chemical weapons. The few fertile women are taken to camps and trained to be handmaidens, surrogate mothers for the upper class. Infertile lower-class women are sent either to clean up toxic waste or to become "Marthas," house servants. No women in the Republic are permitted to be openly sexual; sex is for reproduction only. The government declares this a feminist im...