so, as is well known in canada, the author of the handmaid's tale is a longstanding canadian icon, a cultural hero, a person that was studied heavily at every level of canadian academic literature years before they made a tv show out of a book that she won literary awards for in the 80s.

going to school in canada in the 90s and 00s, the quintessential canadian experience was to read atwood and listen to the hip. and, we claimed her and understood her and analyzed her on this level of being inherently canadian, unlike some other authors or entertainers that just happened to be canadian. so, naomi klein is a writer from canada. but, margaret atwood is a canadian author.

and, that means that being canadian implies you know a few things about her, one of them being that she's an open red tory - what you would call a "liberal republican" in the united states. pushing back against themes explored by atwood has become an undergraduate ritual by young canadian socialists in the english department. we'll have to see if that lasts or not.

if you actually read the book (have you read the book? it won awards, you know. i read it in a second year english course at a university in ottawa.), you'll note that she frequently connects the idea of women's liberation to women's economic freedom. to atwood, women are most free when they can participate as equals in the market. of all of the great ills in this dystopia, which is a projection of the consequences of america having an iranian-like christian revolution and features very heavy-handed islamic imagery that would border on "islamophobia" in today's discourse, it is the abolition of currency that has the most deleterious effect. "offred" reacts most negatively to the repression of her homo economicus, and her reduction to a reproductive vessel that lacks the economic freedom to make choices for herself.

so, she tries to escape to canada, where they still have these magical abstractions called free markets.

well, read the book, if you don't believe me.