American Handmaids
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n 1985, Margaret Atwood wrote a compelling novel called, The Handmaid’s Tale. In case you missed it…or the recent TV series adaptation…it describes a dystopian American society where all women are subjugated to men; and some of them are forced to have sex and bear the children of the ruling cadre of those men.
As a work of fiction, it’s compelling on many levels; but Atwood maintained it really wasn’t fiction at all. She explained she wrote in an era that birthed the Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, the Christian Coalition and all of the related social pathologies of the Reagan years. She told an interviewer, “I didn't put in anything that we haven't already done, we're not already doing, we're seriously trying to do…coupled with trends that are already in progress. So all of those things are real, and therefore the amount of pure invention is close to nil.”
Well, OK, that may have seemed a bit extreme—at the time. But now?
Much has been (properly) made of the impact Donald Trump has had unleashing the hounds of overt racism. But to the same degree, the Pussygrabber in Chief has also given sanction to a new era of the sexual subjugation of women.
Thus, three things:
(1) The Kavanaugh Affair. No, I haven’t gotten over this. Granted, Brett Kavanaugh was hardly the first drunken frat boy to jump on top of a young girl, groping, grinding, and laughing all the way. (Forcing his hand onto her mouth so she couldn’t be heard was an advanced move.) But there was no video of this moment; any witness who attested to any part of it would be vilified almost as much as the victim, Christine Blasey Ford. So, of course, the man eventually was believed.
But my point in bringing this up is the governmental sanctioning of such a deed. Which first occurred when Donald Trump mocked and whined incessantly to one of his Rallies of Morons that nothing Ford said could be believed. And even more so when Kavanaugh was sworn to his lifetime highchair on our high court, with Trump apologizing to him “on behalf of America”, and lamenting that Kavanaugh’s life was “in tatters.”
Naturally, that would be his stance. Trump’s lifetime is a spotless record of pursuing, purchasing and (verbally) pummeling women. In Trumpworld, women exist for man's pleasure. Kavanaugh was created in his image.
(2) Missouri. In America, abortion is legal, so declared by the Supreme Court. Except in states working ceaselessly to subvert federal law. In the entire state of Missouri, there is just a single medical clinic left which offers abortion services. Just one. And Missouri isn’t about to let that stand.
As in any other state, a vaginal exam is required the day an abortion is to be performed. But that’s not enough for Missouri’s squirrely, bow-tied little Department of Health director, Randall Williams. He dictated that in addition to that invasive (but necessary) procedure, a second identical (and entirely unnecessary) one must be performed within the preceding 72 hours. This caused trauma not just for the patients, but also for the medical providers forced to perform them. (Search “Missouri tracked” on Rachel Maddow’s site here.) The state ultimately backed down on this as a mandate—doctors can decide to proceed or not on their own.
But Randall was not done. In addition, for whatever reason, he’s also admitted keeping a spreadsheet recording the menstrual cycles of all women seeking help at that clinic. The reasons were never explained, but the process was clear: he forcibly obtained the private medical records of those women. Adding to his bag of perversions, he authored an entirely new form of invasion.
(3) My Friend. To most of us, the phrase, “all ailments known to man” is just a saying. To my friend, it is life. And sadly, her saga fits here.
From an early age, she has suffered through a sad parade of pathogens, diseases, disorders and allergies that would have felled a normal human decades ago. But still, she fights on.
She is not about to let all this define her. Her life’s work is as a therapist, helping other people. These days, she gets around on short trips with the help of a walker. But in larger, more crowded environments, she will accede to a wheelchair.
So it was that she passed through the metal detector recently at a large U.S. airport. Because of yet another malady, she’s currently required to wear a thin, abdomin-covering brace. Which aroused the suspicions of TSA agents. So sure, I guess that much made sense.
But as her husband turned to retrieve their carry-ons and electronics from the conveyor belt, she suddenly disappeared. When her husband asked, they said she needed to be examined privately in an office. He could not enter.
Inside, they told her to stand and remove the brace. But then, the unexpected—they ordered her to lower her pants and undergarments. As she stood there, waist-down naked, a male TSA agent walked in to retrieve and “run” the brace again. But that wasn’t all. The two female agents then conducted both anal and vaginal probes, searching for exactly what no one ever explained. She was violated in the name of America's security.
Thus, in addition to her multiple medical problems, my friend can now add sexual assault.
hese things play together in my mind in the sense that each of these violations was, in effect, sanctioned by the government. The President said it was OK. The state Department of Health guy said it was OK. The TSA agents ruled it was OK.
In an era where so much attention is paid to violations based on race, religion or sexual identity, the largest victims’ group is the same one it’s always been—women. They are a discriminated majority, not minority. And things are getting worse.
What Margaret Atwood said was true. She wasn’t writing fiction.
She was simply predicting the future.
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