The recent Hulu adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale has been interpreted by commentators with remarkable uniformity, as a nightmare vision perfectly timed for a new patriarchal age of Trump. More recently the think pieces have taken an increasingly emphatic turn with headlines like “We Discuss the Handmaid’s Tale While We’re Still Allowed to Read” and even “The Handmaid’s Tale Gives More Proof That Men Are Monsters.”

#Gilead, a reference to the regime depicted in Atwood’s story, was used in response to images of an all-male panel at the White House debating maternity services. Women in handmaids’ robes and bonnets protested abortion restrictions under consideration at the Texas state capitol. At the Women’s March, protesters held signs that read, “Make Margaret Atwood Fiction Again” and Atwood herself has said her work is a warning for the Trump age.

In the story, a religious coup has ushered a theocracy in to the United States where fertile women, stripped of their rights and reduced to reproductive chattel, are forced to bear children for their society. So what does this tale tell us about America in 2017?