As much as I dislike the way sci-fi is looked down on (or at least used to be), I also think referring to socially-speculative fiction like Handmaid's and 1984

As much as I dislike the way sci-fi is looked down on (or at least used to be), I also think referring to socially-speculative fiction like Handmaid's and 1984 as sci-fi makes no sense. Nobody's reading 1984 for the telescreens! Nor calling Animal Farm "fantasy" because it has talking animals Sure, sci-fi is often very speculative, but lots also includes (for example) mystery elements, yet it would be strange to necessarily call all mystery stories set in a slightly future or alternate-contemporary timeline "sci-fi" I guess you could roughly taxonomize stories on "socially speculative" and "technologically speculative" axes. A high value in the latter often pushes the former up, but not necessarily the other way