No cupcake, this is not a Handmaids Tale

No cupcake, this is not a Handmaids Tale

No cupcake, this is not a Handmaids Tale

I read Margaret Atwood’s dystopian book the Handmaid’s Tale when I was young and naïve. Hated the book and found it unrealistic as all get out. And the overblown hysteria really got in the way of anything resembling a message in said book. But I figured it was just a drama-filled cry of angst. The miniseries made me say “Meh” and the protesting cosplaying handmaids? First, they made me snicker before getting really annoyed. See, the book is about this post-nuclear world where the wives of the elite cannot conceive. Ms. Atwood decides to cure primary infertility by having hands on (literally) surrogacy. In her world, the elite get kids and the handmaids shut up and are wombs with feet.

Except Primary Infertility and Surrogacy don’t work that way. My atheist and pagan friends call that an orgy. My religious friends call it sin. And Ms. Atwood missed those ten commandments including Adultery which is covered in Exodus 20:14. And in my experience, Christians and Jews (this is important) know their ten commandments. Devout Christians who she seems to target would not create this mess: extramarital sex is anathema. The irony is that her theocracy just does not match any historical or modern theocratic society. It does however match the behavior of modern feminists towards their pro life sisters….

The Boston Globe addresses this new protest technique here complete with pictures:

Borrowing from the imagery of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a Hulu TV series that started in April, activists dressed as handmaids are providing perverse optics at demonstrations for women’s rights at state houses across the country. Quiet and demure, they mimic the women forced to bear children for a childless elite in a theocratic dystopia envisioned by Margaret Atwood’s 1985 book, which returned to the bestseller list after the bruising gender wars of the 2016 election.

Theocratic dystopia and Trump? Um no. Absolutely not. He is about the last person their protest would be about. But the disconnect between cosplay and reality is not stopping these brave cosplayers, um, protesters.

“That’s why it’s such a perfect visual for this — because you see these women who are completely hidden,” said coordinator Emily Morgan, a 33-year-old mother who lives in Milford, N.H. “That is how they would have us, if they could, really and truly.”

This is painful. Really, really painful to read. First of all, gender wars? Where were these? Last I saw was pussy hats and women getting loud about issues. The ironic part is all these groups have a view that if you are not pro-death, you are not one of us and can march if you shut up about life. That was the clear message sent to pro-life feminists here and here and here. The last link is from an interview with Wendy Davis in Texas:

Davis says, “My version of feminism believes that if women cannot control our reproductive destinies, then we cannot control our economic opportunity. It’s so intricately tied together.” She goes on to explain, “And so if we stand for women’s advancement, we have to stand for the idea and the ideal that women are in possession of their own bodies, the freedom to make decisions about our bodies, and the ability to create opportunities for ourselves as a consequence of being able to do that.”

Decision means to abort. Or as I like to call it, murder the unborn. Because that is what abortion is, cupcake. And the irony continues:

While she is hesitant to pointedly exclude anyone from feminism, Davis makes it clear where she stands on the tie between a feminist and being pro-choice. “My brand of feminism says you must support reproductive rights in order to fully embrace and stand behind the advancement of women.”

Good to know I am not a feminist despite believing in equal work for equal pay, in women being able to compete for jobs with men, and make decisions for themselves. Because grown women have a brain and we know how to use it. Anyway, Ms. Davis and her handmaid pals ironically want to silence women who are pro-life. So guess what: feminist foremothers who went to jail and stuff were not feminists to these lunatics.

 

But back to the handmaid wannabes:

“The Handmaid’s Tale” is a bleak, science-fiction twist on an extreme anti-feminist state. In it, women lose all rights — to work, to earn or spend their own money, even to read — after a crackdown by a theocratic regime following terrorist attacks and amid diminished fertility rates. Those who remain fertile are forced into sexual slavery, while other women become servants for the privileged couples who claim the offspring.

Sexual slavery? Ummm, no. Again, the cupcakes may want to try reading Exodus 20. Adultery and covetousness are no-nos for any patriarchial or “theocratic” group that are considered evil by the cosplaying cupcakes. I can guess they mean they actually try and live their religion, I guess? Or find murder of the unborn distasteful? Funny thing about that: the cosplayers are highlighting right-to-kill the unborn as their main issue. So the nice people from Texas Right to Life have a great answer:

Joe Pojman executive director of the Texas Alliance for Life, an anti-abortion organization, thinks that’s a bit much. He didn’t recognize the point of the handmaids in the Senate chamber until his wife explained it to him later, he said, and she took issue with their imagery.

Reality vs cosplay

His wife explained (and disagreed). Hmmm. Not exactly how Ms. Atwood’s world worked.

“She didn’t think it is at all an appropriate way to protest, because she thinks there’s actually no chance our society is sliding into a dystopian society of that kind,” he said.

Exactly. And calling Donald Trump a “theocrat” is simply hilarious. He is not. He is a lot of things, but theocrat?

While he said he admires the activists for getting involved, Pojman noted that women are leading the fight against abortion, too. And in Texas, they appear to be winning.

Women are in leadership roles. Whoops!

And, he was amused to spot the handmaids, in their otherworldly costumes, still furtively clutching one modern luxury.

Accuracy for cosplayers is key. Note to handmaids, you are doing it wrong.

“Presumably in this dystopian society they’re alluding to,” Pojman said, “women would not be permitted to have cellphones.”

Frankly, I am wishing for the pussy hats: cosplay without context is nothing but filler for a bored evening news crew. There is a terrible irony when pro-life women being pushed out and told they are not feminists or to keep silent seems more in character for the bad guys in Atwood’s book, right?

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25 Comments
  • Paula says:

    Thanks for this! I have been watching the miniseries and whenever the writers shove the “conservatives equal women have no rights” twaddle down our throats, I just have to roll my eyes. Every time they’re saying it’s this religious theocracy that’s forcing women to be handmaids and bear children for the ruling class, which they force us to believe are conservative Christians, I have to shake my head and wonder if the writers actually KNOW any conservative Christians? Because the ones I know — me included — aren’t going to be OK with their husbands impregnating some random “handmaid.” Not exactly following those Ten Commandments! I appreciate your post and agree 1000%!

    • Gail Boer says:

      Thanks Paula. I think Ms. Atwood missed the part about the 10 commandments and about what we believe and why we believe it. Although there are real issues these cosplaying cupcakes are bringing to the light of day, their methods frankly stink.

  • David Krishan says:

    Atwood was a religious bigot. All you need to do to completely shut down the idiotic discussions of this movie and book are to point out that it pretty well projects a future ISLAMIC country, not a Christian one.

    Libs get real quiet after that.

    • Gail Boer says:

      Thanks David! Funny thing is that their dystopian Utopia or whatever this worldview is fits more precisely into leftist ideology where their way is the only way.

      • ML says:

        You might get something like Atwood’s theocracy if for some bizarre reason the libs suddenly decided to take on some of the trappings of Christianity en masse, but missed the actual message and meaning of the religion completely. In other words, if they created a cult of what they ASSUME Christianity is without trying to study or understand the real thing.

        But it would have to be either something like that, or an Islamic state. I don’t know, maybe if you posited that after a devastating war mostly some heavily lib areas were left intact due to bad luck and some really charismatic leader type decided to start that pseudo-Christian cult and succeeded…?

        • ML says:

          And btw, personally, I am not a Christian because there are things I do believe which are not parts of that faith, and things I don’t believe which are. But I do think it has been one of the best big religions in the world when it comes to building societies. Good moral basis. But I can’t join any church because I would not be honest if I did. So I just remain a generic pagan who highly appreciates the faith and is quite willing to support it, from the outside. Considering Christian countries are among the few in the world where I can do that and not risk any major harassment (some pagans do, but mostly it’s in the league of minor irritants and probably often due to in your face behavior), while in some countries I might be risking my life if I did not belong to the major religion.

          • Gail Boer says:

            ML you sound like my pagan friends. Atwoo and her goofy supporters are ironically describing a society that is like empire of the Ottoman Turks. Complete with harems.

  • GWB says:

    these women who are completely hidden … That is how they would have us, if they could

    Only if you shut up, too. Yes, I would absolutely love for every SJW feminist to be hidden and silent, because they make life for everyone very unenjoyable, in every way. You caught me, Emily. (Mind you, I don’t want the ladies here hidden or silent; they are much more enjoyable people, even when we disagree.)

    the ideal that women are in possession of their own bodies

    Well, you were in control of your bodies, when you spread your thighs and cavorted with a male in such a fashion as to risk pregnancy. (And rapes are a minuscule portion of all abortions. Period.) After that, you have another body to worry about.
    (And, honestly, Wendy Davis is still a thing? Reporters still call her?)

    As to the concept of fertility slaves (really what the “handmaids” are), why isn’t it viewed as the men being nothing more than studs to the fortunate fertile women? (Just to flip it on its head, then kick it around some.)

    • Gail Boer says:

      Good points GWB and had to LOL about silenced feminists being ideal. YES be responsible for your behavior (don’t get me started on paying for promiscuity….. Nope. 🙂 Regarding the fertility slaves, Atwood makes the mistake of assuming any woman in her right mind would consent to such a thing. And why is it that the left is so invested in abortion?

      • Micha Elyi says:

        Regarding the fertility slaves, Atwood makes the mistake of assuming any woman in her right mind would consent to such a thing.–Gail Boer

        Ah, but wealthy feminist females who fancy themselves careerists do colonize the bodies of other, more fertile women–that’s what using so-called surrogate mothers is all about. These “fertility slaves” are often poor desperate women. Atwood has, it turns out, forecast the theology of pagan feminism.

    • David says:

      “[W]hy isn’t it viewed as the men being nothing more than studs to the fortunate fertile women?”

      Bingo! Why aren’t we doing telly adaptations of Philip José Farmer’s novel Flesh, which is about a spaceship that returns to Earth only to discover that it’s thousands of year’s later and most of the men are infertile. The captain of the ship is kidnapped by the female rulers and surgically altered into a hormone-pumped satyr and rolled about in a cage to service the local women until he dies of exhaustion.

      Fight the Matriarchy!

  • Joe says:

    Remember too that Atwood is a Canadian presupposing that the United States is less free, massaging the ego by insisting that good people would risk their lives to flee there. The feelings supported by the suppositions is the inverse of reality.

    The Handmaid’s Tale is oppression porn.

  • lost my cookies says:

    Picking nits. Equal work for equal pay means that because I drink a lot, cry, and argue I should be paid as much as one of the Real Housewives, but I’m not, so I’ll settle for for equal pay for equal work.
    There’s no commutative property in language.

    • Gail Boer says:

      Oh I like that idea. I guess I need to increase my wine consumption…. Seriously yes equal pay for equal work. 🙂

  • Houston Grandma says:

    “The Handmaid’s Tale” is already here. Gays. lesbians unwilling to do the hard work of pregnancy, rich leftists, aging feminists who left it too late, left wing Hollywood actresses, are already using poorer women of color as breeding machines, and then leaving them in obscurity, wondering where their children have gone.

  • Dan says:

    Well if you look at it, it is NOT the MEN who are behind the Handmaids. Just as in the Bible IT IS THE WOMEN!!!
    The Elite WOMEN are the ones forcing this.
    So Feminists are attacking LIB Women.
    Also you can bet that in ANY society where FEMALE infertility is a major problem, ABORTION will be OUTLAWED with very heavy penalties. It doesn’t matter what ideology the society has. A Society’s Survival is always number 1.

    • Gail Boer says:

      True. The ironic part is that conservative men actually treasure women. And women have a voice. The Leftists are the ones who muzzle women.

  • grayswindir says:

    .”..the freedom to make decisions about our bodies”

    They do, women are the gatekeepers to sex in western society. Well, wherever in the west they haven’t imported enthusiastic rape culture advocates from the middle east.

    It’s a simple decision, don’t want kids? Don’t have sex.

    • Gail Boer says:

      So simple and so so true. And if you want contraception, pay for it yourself. 🙂 That makes sense which means that these special females will howl like banshees. Because we are not allowing them to be promiscuous?

  • This is fantastic! I wrote about these nimrods in NH. Not only did they make a mockery of women by having a MAN dress up as a ‘handmaid’ but they were protesting a bill that would actually GIVE women more rights to seek justice if their unborn baby was murdered or killed. On top of that, these handmaid harpies are MOCKING women who actually ARE oppressed around the world who often live in far worse conditions than in The Handmaid’s Tale.

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