"This essay collection uses female monsters from Greek mythology to explore traits that women are taught to suppress, and encourage readers to embrace them instead"-- The folklore that has shaped our dominant culture teems with frightening female creatures. In stories chiefly written by men, women who step out of bounds-- angry or greedy or ambitious, overtly sexual or not sexy enough-- are unnatural, monstrous. Through fresh analysis of eleven female...

A religion-based autocracy has taken over most of the United States, renaming the country Gilead. In this country women are second-class citizens. Anyone trying to escape is punished. One such person is June, who is captured while trying to escape with her husband and child and is sentenced to be a handmaid, bearing children for childless government officials. As a handmaid, June is renamed Offred. This is her story.