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Why Was It Banned? · Margaret Atwood
Why Was The Handmaid's Tale Banned?
Margaret Atwood's novel about a theocratic state that strips women of all rights has been challenged in schools since its publication in 1985. Its banning history is a near-perfect parallel to the political events the novel depicts — and every challenge has increased its readership.
Short answer: The Handmaid's Tale has been challenged for sexual content (the novel includes descriptions of state-sanctioned rape), profanity, and "anti-Christian" themes. The deeper reason — rarely stated in formal challenge documents — is that the book depicts a government that uses religion to control women's bodies, and some challengers recognise their own political positions in Gilead's logic. Every major ban attempt has been followed by a sales spike. Atwood has noted this pattern with characteristic dryness.
1985Published
BookerPrize Shortlisted
10M+Copies Sold
The banning history — tracking political temperature
Who challenged it, when, and what happened next
1985
Published — immediate critical recognition and first challengesPublished in Canada in 1985, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and challenged in Canadian schools within two years. The first challenges were in Ontario and British Columbia, citing sexual content and anti-Christian themes. Atwood, who is Canadian, had drawn on real historical events when constructing Gilead — the novel contains no invented methods of control that weren't already in documented use somewhere.
1990s
US school challenges begin — Texas and CaliforniaUS school challenges emerged in the 1990s, most prominently in Texas and California. The grounds were consistent: sexual content (the Ceremony, in which the Commander rapes Offred while his wife holds her hands, is described in clinical, deliberately passionless prose that challengers consistently described as "pornographic"), profanity, and anti-religious content.
2006
Removed from a Texas Advanced Placement curriculumA Texas school district removed the novel from an AP English curriculum, arguing it was "not appropriate" despite being widely used in AP courses nationally. The challenge followed parental complaints about the novel's religious content — specifically its depiction of a Christian-theocratic government using scripture to justify oppression.
2017
Hulu adaptation — massive sales spike; fresh challenges emergeThe Emmy-winning Hulu adaptation brought the novel to a new generation of readers and simultaneously triggered a new wave of challenges. Sales of the book tripled in the weeks after the show premiered. Women wearing Handmaid costumes appeared at political protests across the US. Challenges to the book in school districts increased by roughly 30% compared to the previous year.
2022
Post-Dobbs: challenges reach new intensityFollowing the US Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade, The Handmaid's Tale became the most prominent literary reference point in public debate about reproductive rights. Challenges to the book in school libraries intensified in states that had restricted abortion. Sales reached levels not seen since the Hulu premiere. The irony of banning a novel about reproductive control in a period of restricted reproductive rights was noted by essentially everyone except those filing the challenges.
What the novel contains — and what challengers say about it
The content objections — and what they reveal
Sexual content. The novel's central sexual scene — the Ceremony — is the state-sanctioned rape of Offred by the Commander, conducted in the presence of the Commander's wife. Atwood writes it with deliberate emotional flatness, from Offred's dissociated perspective. Challengers have described this as pornographic. Atwood's point is precisely the opposite: the passionless, clinical prose depicts rape as a bureaucratic procedure rather than a crime — which is what Gilead has made it.
Anti-Christian themes. Gilead uses Biblical justification for all of its practices — the name "Handmaid" comes from the story of Rachel and Bilhah in Genesis. Challengers have argued this constitutes anti-Christian content. Atwood has consistently noted that she invented nothing: every element of Gilead's control system has historical precedent in real theocratic regimes, including Christian ones. The critique is of theocracy and the political use of religion, not of Christianity itself.
Why banning it backfires. Each challenge to The Handmaid's Tale produces the same result: press coverage, increased readership, and an inadvertent demonstration of the novel's central argument. A book about women being silenced, challenged by people who want it removed from schools, produces its own political theatre. Atwood has noted this with characteristic precision: "When powerful people try to silence a book, they usually succeed only in making more people want to read it."
FAQ
Is The Handmaid's Tale banned in any country?
The Handmaid's Tale has been removed from some school curricula in the US and Canada but is not nationally banned in any democratic country. It has restricted circulation in some authoritarian states. It is freely available in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, and throughout Europe.
What does Atwood say about the banning?
Atwood has addressed the banning history directly on multiple occasions, noting that challenges to the book tend to come from people who recognise Gilead's logic and object to seeing it named. She has also noted, with characteristic dryness, that each ban attempt increases the book's sales — making censorship, in this case, an effective marketing tool.
Is The Handmaid's Tale anti-Christian?
The novel depicts a theocratic state that uses Christian scripture to justify oppression — a regime Atwood explicitly modelled on historical precedents from within Christian history. It is a critique of theocracy and the political weaponisation of religion, not of Christian belief itself. Atwood has made this distinction consistently, and multiple Christian scholars have read it in the same way.
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