Speculation or Sci-Fi?

I believe the “Handmaid’s Tale” should be speculative book. This book is speculating what United States and the rest of the world will be like in the future. Unlike most science fiction novels, Handmaid’s Tale contains no real advanced technologies from the future. The story can happen now, future or even in the past. A speculative novel portrays an alternative scenario in history or future that expresses the author’s speculation of the world. In this book, the author speculates about what United States will be like if it is under a totalitarian, theological government that women are oppressed and with different social rank with different specific jobs in the community. To be a real science fiction book, the novel has to contain specific advance in technologies such as flying vehicles or space ships. In the Handmaid’s tale, no advance in technology is mention yet. Instead, it seems like the technology in the book stops in the 1980s that people don’t have computers or television that can monitor people. It is still stuck with the notion that people are under surveillance with spies hiding among the normal citizen. The technology may even go backward that people buy stuff with tokens instead with paper money or coin.