Handmaid's Tale Revisited

This 1985 novel tells of a land where "right wing conservatives" have taken over and repress women. It is kind of funny in retrospect, it probably was meant to illustrate leftists deepest fears of Ronald Reagan. Of course, there is a society out in the world that wants to take over and repress women - Muslim. The book would have made perfect sense if it was written about Taliban run Afghanistan, or even Saudi Arabia. This came to me a bit when thinking about the death of Pamela Bone, an Australian Feminist, who at the end of her life came to the conclusion that Western Feminism wasn't fighting Muslim tradition enough. See Mark Steyn on this here.