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The Handmaid's Tale Margaret Atwood

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Vivian: Welcome back to That Show, everyone. We are back with our special guest, Margaret Atwood. She is an amazing author of an award-winning novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale”. [to Margaret] Your novel turned out to be one of the greatest feminist novels. Are you a feminist?

M. Atwood: This is one of the questions that I struggle to answer because that term is used quite often and in various contexts that you don’t really know what you’re saying yes or no to. When you use the term “feminism”, I’m curious as to what you mean by it. Does it mean all the women are on the low side and all the men are on the high side? Does it mean women should run the world and men should be pushed off a cliff? Does it mean women are as equal to men and deserve to have the same rights as men?
Vivian: Those are good questions. Feminism is used to describe so many things nowadays that we don’t know what it means to be a feminist anymore. I’m asking for the terms of equality and as an equal to men. Do you believe women should have the same rights as men do and are treated the same way?
M. Atwood: Of course. I also believe …show more content…

Do you gravitate toward feminist roles, or was that your intention for this novel?
M. Atwood: I don’t necessarily feel like they are feminist roles but rather interesting women. To me, I see it as a human novel about human rights, not just women’s rights alone because our rights are human rights unless you have decided that women aren’t human. Women are human beings, a very complicated, emotional, mixed lot. I try to stay true to human nature and violate any terms as little as possible so that this novel isn’t proposing anything new; it’s not an invention. It’s based on stuff that people have already done and therefore could do again.
Vivian: Well “The Handmaid’s Tale” does stand for itself. It definitely got that message out there. How was your experience being published? I hear that it’s harder for women to get

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