This Is a Photograph of Me

In her long career, Margaret Atwood has been known for her feminist concerns throughout her many artistic endeavors. While her feminism has always been apparent, her reputation was solidified by the popularity of her 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, which has become a cultural touchstone for feminists worldwide. 

Many critics feel, however, that Atwood’s feminism was obvious from the start of her career. The poetry collection The Circle Game (1964) in which “This is a Photograph of Me” appears, was created a year after The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan’s popular examination of women’s angst, challenged patriarchal social mores. Along with other authors of the second-wave feminist movement that grew out of Friedan’s work, Atwood in her writing investigated the definitions of partnerships, family, marriage, domesticity, reproductive rights, and inequality. 

Atwood has sometimes balked at the feminist label for being limiting, identifying herself as an artist first, stressing that she cares about a variety of social problems, including sexual politics, class inequity, and the environment, and noting that she has created complexity of character and situation for both male and female characters. As her public interviews make clear, Atwood has been an outspoken activist against societal repression, the trampling of human rights, and environmental harm.