'Handmaid's Tale' Speaks to Modern Feminism

If there is an urtext of modern feminism, especially for those of us who prefer it in the form of juicy dystopian novels instead of lofty essays, then Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is probably the closest thing we’ve got. It’s one of those books that people believe can tell a lot about another person based on what that other person thought of it.

Is your new boyfriend woke enough? Has he read “The Handmaid’s Tale”?

Is your new book club smart enough? How do they discuss “The Handmaid’s Tale”?

Has your relationship with your repressed Protestant mother festered for so long that you have never considered her as a complex woman with a rich inner life and her own unrealized desires and fears? Pour her a merlot and give her “The Handmaid’s Tale.” That ought to get you somewhere, even if it’s somewhere you later wish you hadn’t gone.

Read the rest of this article at The Washington Post.

Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls appears in The Handmaid's Tale.