What’s your outfit of the day for the polls? What does one wear when casting a vote in one of the weightiest presidential elections in U.S. history? One woman in Asheville, North Carolina knew just what to do.
In a “genius” move, the voter showed up to exercise her democratic right in a red cloak and white hood straight out of the dystopian TV series The Handmaid’s Tale.
As people pointed out, the choice was a clear statement without having to actually vocalize anything at all — for those of us who’ve been through multiple seasons of the incensed show, this outfit is a loud, oppositely-charged answer to the red MAGA cap synonymous with Donald Trump’s ticket.
What does The Handmaid’s Tale outfit mean?
The show is based on Margaret Atwood’s novel and set in a dystopian near-future. The “Republic of Gilead,” a patriarchal, totalitarian state overthrew the U.S. government, slowly stripping away women’s rights.
As birth rates fell and the men in charge panicked, the regime’s grip on women became more and more restrictive, and handmaids were forced to carry the babies of the regime’s men.
It started slowly. First came financial restrictions and incursions on bodily autonomy, weaved into the law slow enough for citizens to either have been brainwashed into agreeing by propaganda or be too deep in muddy water to do anything in revolt. Years on, the regime is mutilating gay people and hanging dissenters outside grocery shops.
It’s a feminist nightmare, told through a cold clinical lens and meant as a warning. Unfortunately, some aspects of modern society have come to mirror the story’s finer details. We’re a long way from anything portrayed in the book or TV show, but women’s rights in the U.S. are undoubtedly debated as if they’re optional. One must only look at the rise of trad-wife culture, the rise of incels, and the attack on safe and legal abortion.
The best way to describe The Handmaid’s Tale is sobering. As in, if you watch it it should leave a lasting impression on how existential threats can start mounting as small changes to legislation and social changes before they begin to oppress in an unignorable, everyday way. If you had to fight for liberty, there’s a possibility it can clawed back by the opposition.
The tale is meant as an extreme version of threats against women’s self-agency and independence, as well as a reminder of why we must separate church and state. If anything, it only gets more timely. This election will reveal whether people are willing to let a man accused of sexual assault, who heads a party that rolled back Roe v. Wade, lead the most prosperous country in the world.
Atwood doesn’t mind her work being referenced in real-life politics. On the contrary, she has been vocal about voting for Kamala Harris and shared art by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mike Luckovich on Nov. 1 that may have inspired the Asheville woman’s outfit.
She hasn’t come forward publicly, so there’s no way of guaranteeing which bubble the Asheville circled in. Still, our safest bet would be it wasn’t for the dude who claims he wants to protect women despite having a history of allegedly harming them.
