That might seem like a loaded statement, but it’s not. It is intellectually lazy to use the Handmaid’s Tale, and I’m calling you out. Let me explain why.
First, stop calling/referencing it by The Handmaiden’s Tale. The actual title of Margaret Atwood’s book and the HULU series is The Handmaid’s Tale. Call me crazy, but when you switch maid with maiden, fetishism is revealed.
In the television series, the main character is a pretty, blonde-haired, blue-eyed white woman, forced to be the breeding receptacle for a powerful white man. This will lead me to my first point.
It is not necessary to used a fictionalized story of men controlling women’s bodies to talk about a serious subject that is very real. In doing this, we erase the historical context of men oppressing women, and the communities, mostly people of color, who are affected most detrimentally. Atwood recently weighed in on the Roe v. Wade controversy: “Enforce childbirth if you wish but at least call that enforcing by what it is. It is slavery: the claim to own and control another’s body, and to profit by that claim.”
To conflate abortion rights with slavery minimizes the horrors of this practice. Let me be clear; this is not to say that it is not horrific to force a woman to carry a fetus she doesn’t want, however, they are two separate issues.
Slavery is having zero body autonomy at all. Ever…not simply for 9 months gestation. Slaves were often brutally raped, and did not participate in tacky insemination ceremonies. They could never escape their rapists, and were often forced to not only carry their babies, but also required to work while pregnant to enrich their rapists.
The other problematic aspect is that both versions of Handmaid’s Tale, whitewash the inherent racism that should exist in discussions of women’s healthcare. Atwood’s tale does not have any people of color in the theocratic and authoritarian regime known as Gilead, at least the book does not. She does give oftentimes somewhat clumsy nods to slavery, and the television show does bring color into the story with subsequent characters.
“The network that rescues handmaids is clumsily named the Underground Femaleroad, after the historic Underground Railroad. Atwood also mentions that the regime hates the song “Amazing Grace,” which was originally written as a protest against the slave trade. Handmaids, like black slaves before them, are not allowed to read, need passes to go outside, and can be publicly lynched for perceived crimes against the regime.”
While the HULU series tries to address and acknowledge the history of slavery, and has black characters, “there’s no suggestion of racial prejudice in the show. No one in the series, seems to see or reference race. Gilead is virulently sexist and homophobic, but it is, to all appearances, less racist than the current United States.”
Regarding women’s right to choose, we need to discuss it in a context that does not whitewash the real and historical affect the patriarchy has had on all communities of color and supplant it with fictional dystopian worlds where the suppressed are white.
Let’s be clear, the history of the United States is rife with horrific stories of the abuse and subjugation of people of color. Aside from brutalizing and even erasing native populations as soon as white Europeans arrived, slavery was as American as apple pie. Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 41 were believed to own slaves. Eight of the first twelve Presidents owned slaves while in office, and additional 4 Presidents had slaves when they were not in office.
It’s imperative to look at the foundations of our country to see that our Presidents, who were powerful, white men, did abused their power over women. Perhaps the most famous President to do this was President Thomas Jefferson, who forced six children on his slave, Sally Hemmings, four of whom survived to adulthood. While rumors of his having children with Ms. Hemmings existed as early as 1802, they remained rumors until confirmed by DNA testing in 1998.
While President George Washington fathered no children, his adopted son, Parke Custis, forced children on at least two of his father’s slaves, Arianna Carter and Caroline Branham. This fact was not publicly acknowledged until 2016.
Adding to the lineup, we have President Grover Cleveland, and while this sordid tale does not involve slaves, it does involve allegations of rape. While on the campaign trail, Cleveland was embroiled in a scandal where it was discovered that he had an out-of-wedlock child with Maria Halpin ten years earlier, then placed her in a mental institution. He made sure her son was taken from her and placed for adoption.
Cleveland naysayers tried to use this information against him, but his campaign was able to grossly tarnish Halpin’s reputation while dismissing it as bachelor behavior. While we will never know what transpired between Maria Halpin and Cleveland, we do know how she described it in an 1884 interview: “The circumstances under which my ruin was accomplished are too revolting on the part of Grover Cleveland to be made public.”
President William H. Harrison, who died 31 days after his inauguration, is alleged by historian Kenneth Robert Jenkin to have forced at least six children on his slave, Dilsia, four of whom were sold. This has never been independently corroborated. His successor, President John Tyler, is also alleged to forcing children on his slaves and perhaps even selling them.
Just a side note: the Washington Post article I reference in the links above is despicably titled: Warren Harding and 5 other presidents who have faced ‘love child’ questions. This washing of rape, completely ignores the power dynamics involved.
“Sally Hemings’ circumstances as a Black woman and slave were similar to the thousands of other female slaves in the United States during this time period in American history. Bound and constrained with no economic or political power, they were left to the disposal of their white masters to birth their children and face the wrath of the angry White woman over the light skinned children her husband fathered, or defend her body, and face beatings or even death.” Hemings remained Jefferson’s slave until his death and was never legally emancipated.
This history of subjugation of abuse of women in general, and women of color specifically, is exactly why we are where we are today. According to the American Diabetes Association’s 80th Scientific Sessions in 2020, “American women die in childbirth at a higher rate than in any other developed country, while non-Hispanic Black women are more than 3 times more likely to have a maternal death than white women in the United States.”
There are many factors that I will enumerate on in a future article, but for the moment, let me just plead that you stop with Handmaid’s Tale comparisons as truth is decidedly more terrible than fiction.