Foundations and ruling class elites.

Unlike Offred, feminists have long recognized as imperative the task of seeking out, defining, and criticizing the complex reality that governs the ways the authors think, the values they hold, and the relationships they share, especially with regard to gender.

Abstract

In Margaret Atwood's powerful novel Handmaid's Tale,1 the heroine Offred, a member of a new class of two legged wombs in a dystopian society, often thinks to herself, Context is all. Offred reminds us of an important truth: at each moment of our lives our every thought, value, and act?from the most mundane to the most lofty?takes its meaning and purpose from the wider and social reality that constitutes and conditions us. In her newly reduced circumstances, Offred comes to see that matters beyond one's immediate purview make a great deal of difference with respect to living a more or less free and fully human life. But her realization comes too late. Unlike Offred, feminists have long recognized as imperative the task of seeking out, defining, and criticizing the complex reality that governs the ways we think, the values we hold, and the relationships we share, especially with regard to gender. If context is all, then feminism in its various guises is committed to uncovering what is all around us and to revealing the power relations that constitute the creatures we become. The personal is the political is the credo of this critical practice.