“They should have never given us uniforms if they didn’t want us to be an army.” — Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
Margaret Atwood published her dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, in 1986. The story takes place in a totalitarian society known as Gilead. Gilead is run by an all men group known as the “Committee”. Only men have access to education, jobs/political positions, owning property, and power. Women are regarded as second-class citizens and have a main purpose of solely bearing children. They are stripped of their basic human rights and are classified into categories making up the Gilead hierarchy. From highest ranking to lowest ranking, the main categories are: Wives, Aunts, Handmaids, Marthas, Econowives, and Jezebels. Each category has a representative color. For Handmaids, this color is red.
The classic red “Handmaid” image has been utilized in many historic events. The white wide-rimmed bonnet and long red cloak have become a symbol of women’s oppression in society today. Women use this image in rights rallies as pictured below.
The Handmaid’s Tale in Reality
The challenges addressed in The Handmaid’s Tale regarding women’s rights have sparked protests across the country. In 2017, a group of women stood outside the Texas state capitol building protesting a bill that would restrict abortions in the state of Texas. This sparked an anti-abortion protest movement throughout the nation. Six weeks following the Texas protest, protestors in Missouri dressed in the same uniforms and publicly protested a budget provision that would keep uninsured women from abortion services. Soon after these protests, a group called The Handmaid Coalition was formed with the slogan, “Fighting to keep fiction from becoming a reality.” This group currently includes hundreds of members from the United States, Canada, and Europe (Liptak, 2017).
Atwood utilized many past historical events in her writing that centered around concepts of women being considered as “second-class” citizens and population control. She focuses specifically on how the government has taken away women’s rights to freely choose if and when they have children. Handmaid’s are forced to become pregnant within a specific time period and give birth to a healthy child. Infertility is never blamed on men, only women. Unfortunately, as stated from The Handmaid Coalition, Atwood’s fiction is not necessarily completely ‘fiction’ (Liptak, 2017). Actual instances of government population control have been examined in history, making Atwood’s fiction become a form of reality.
Population Control Measures in China
A historical example of Atwood’s fiction becoming a form of reality was demonstrated in China. China holds the world’s highest population of 1.2 billion people and twenty-one percent of the entire world population (Cook, 1999). If population rates continue to increase, China would suffer from serious social, economic, and environmental consequences. Extremely high population numbers lead to issues such as not enough land and necessary resources, pollution, and inadequate living conditions. To attempt to combat these consequences, the Chinese government enforced the “one child per family” policy in 1979 (Cook, 1999).
To enforce this policy, it was required that Chinese citizens obtain a birth certificate before the child was born. “Special benefits” were offered to the families who followed this policy. Consequences of not following this policy included an increased tax to fifty percent of the individual’s income, loss of employment, and forced termination of pregnancies. Further, in the early 1980s, parents of two children were forced to undergo sterilization procedures. By 1983, tubal litigations, vasectomies, and abortions made up roughly thirty-five percent of all birth control methods used (Cook, 1999). Additionally, cultural preferences have favored sons over daughters, similar to the culture in The Handmaid’s Tale. Many families hoped for their one chance at childbirth to be a male. As a result, rates of female infanticide increased dramatically.
The Chinese government received large amounts of backlash and criticism for their aim at population control. Many countries, including the United States, expressed deep concern over China’s government population control. Eventually, the “one child per family” policy was discontinued. The policy did not change population rates dramatically and is widely regarded as a “failed” attempt at population control, however, this policy brought Atwood’s horrific visions into a form of reality.
Control vs. Freedom
This policy, and others, raised concerns for women’s rights. After all, “better never means better for everyone…it always means worse, for some” (Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale). Freedom from reproductive coercion should be a fundamental human right. Government should not have the power to force reproductive limitations and sterilization techniques onto women without their consent.
By the time The Handmaid’s Tale came out as a Hulu television series in 2017, women were strongly protesting anti-abortion and forced sterilization methods with the classic Handmaid image. The timing of the Hulu series’ release was extremely coincidental with the massive shift happening in United States politics. After all, Donald Trump’s inauguration was a mere three months before the series premiered.
Fiction or Reality
Many feared the horrific events in The Handmaid’s Tale would soon become a reality under the new U.S. President. Concepts such as the elimination of gay people, government declared martial law, and the subjugation of women left many citizens feeling uneasy. As Joyce Carol Oates, an American writer, reflected in her 2006 Handmaid retrospective, “[H]ow eerily prescient that the Republic of Gilead was established by a coup when Christian fundamentalists, revulsed by an overly liberal, godless, and promiscuous society, assassinated the president, machine-gunned Congress, declared a national state of emergency, and laid blame to ‘Islamic fanatics,’” This was becoming a true possibility for the world today (Armstrong, 2018).
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale
The January 2017 Women’s March, inspired by the inauguration of President Trump, included many references to The Handmaid’s Tale with costumes, beliefs, and fundamental morals (Armstrong, 2018). Protesting against anti-gay and anti-abortion power seemed unusually relevant to current civilization. Atwood’s story and message was eerily applicable to today’s society. As history unfolds, we must remain keenly aware of our fundamental human rights as individuals in this society.
