The book is not about feminism, except as a marketing tool. Atwood described it as “a study of power, and how it operates and how it deforms or shapes the people who are living within that kind of regime”. The only reason it is pegged to feminism is because Atwood had the savvy to jump on the feminist bandwagon, which in the 1980s was sprialing up to a shrill crescendo. Exactly at a time when people were re-reading “1984” and discovering that it was about America, not the USSR. Plus she had the cachet of a woman-writer, with a willing and ready readership in place… All the ingredients of literary success.