Descent into Gilead: Examining the Growing Trend in the Suppression of Women’s Rights

*CW – Assault*

By Lisbeth Black

A while back, I was listening to a podcast with Margaret Atwood. The interviewer asked about Atwood’s inspiration for The Handmaid’s Tale and whether it was still relevant today; Atwood responded that it was painful to admit how relevant the book still is. For Gilead to exist, the state itself has to deny that they are heading towards it while making incremental changes, little by little, until Gilead is the outcome, the destination. It’s kind of like the saying, “if you put a frog in boiling water, it will jump, but if you put it in cold water and slowly turn up the heat, it won’t really notice it’s dying”. I was listening to this podcast on the way to work in Tesco at the height of Covid, and the truth of it made my skin crawl. It made me think hard about the following pertinent question:

How close are we to Gilead?

I wish that I was unable to set out fact-based arguments for the above question. I wish that it was just me, musing in my camper about a hypothetical issue that was never really going to come to fruition. A more intellectual based argument, if you will. Unfortunately, though, over the last couple of years and especially since Covid has changed the entire world’s political landscape, I have been saving at least one article a week that highlights the growing oppression of women globally. I could write pages and pages and pages about what I’ve read. For the sake of word count, however, I will be mainly focusing on American and British examples.

ARKANSAS BANS NEARLY ALL ABORTIONS

In early March 2021, Arkansas banned all abortions (other than those which meant the life of the mother was at risk). Supporters backing this law are doing so as a direct challenge to the 1973 Roe vs Wade legislation that legalises abortion. Conservatives believe that there is a good chance, if the issue reaches the supreme court, that Roe vs Wade could get overturned due to Trump’s three appointments to the court. The ban is due to be debated this summer. The scariest part? Arkansas is only one out of fourteen states that have attempted to outrightly ban abortions this year.

THE UK GOVERNMENT FAILED TO CONSIDER GENDER IN COVID RESPONSE

The London School of Economics has claimed that discussions of how gender should be considered in the covid response were absent from crucial meetings that informed the overall government response to the pandemic. Academics from LSE analysed the minutes from 73 meetings held by the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) and found that only 13 out of the 73 meetings made reference to gender; even then, it conflated gender and sex and was regarding biological risks, not societal ones. This is despite the fact that women make up 77% of people in jobs that have a high exposure to the virus and that women are suffering more due to school closures, with 72% having to take a cut in earnings and hours in order to look after children at home.

SURVEY SHOWS HALF OF WOMEN IN THE UK FEAR EQUALITY IS GOING BACK TO THE 70s

A Mumsnet poll for International Women’s Day 2021 showed that almost 50% of women are expecting gender equality to reverse in the next few years. The poll also threw up some seriously enraging statistics. According to the poll, women who live with a male partner say they do all or most of the laundry (73%), home-schooling (70%), life admin (64%), cleaning (61%), childcare (60%), and cooking (60%).

An SOS line was also opened by Joeli Brearly, the founder of Pregnant Then Screwed, to give women a chance to leave voicemails about their experiences. One of the replies was, “Please, please make it stop; I just can’t keep going!” The voice notes are enough to make you cry, mother or not.

THE PERSISTENCE OF VIRGINITY TESTS IN THE US

Virginity is a societal concept, and to test for it is utterly disgusting and debasing. Hymen checks are still happening across the US, but as they are requested confidentially, we cannot be sure how prevalent they are. A small 2017 study found that out of 288 doctors, 45 had been asked at least once to perform virginity testing, and 13 of them had complied. These checks are happening to children, and the consequences of the test results can be grave. The rapper TI disclosed that he has his daughter’s hymen checked every year, just to put the bizarre cherry on this unsavoury cake.

20 COUNTRIES STILL ALLOW RAPISTS TO MARRY VICTIMS TO ESCAPE PROSECUTION

This is from the UN’s annual state of world population report and is happening in countries such as Russia and Venezuela. Rapists can have their convictions overturned if they marry those they assaulted.

Yup.

The report also sheds light on the fact that 45% of women in 57 countries are denied the right to say yes or no to sex with their partner, use contraception, or seek healthcare. In Mali, Niger, and Senegal less than 1 in 10 women have autonomy over healthcare, contraception, or giving their consent to having sex with their partners.

The above headlines are just a handful of stories that have been circulating this year, but they very clearly show a growing trend towards the subjugation of girls and women. The UK and US are becoming so much more politically right-wing. Every day I read the news and wonder when we are going to reach a point that we can’t get back from. I know that when I watch the television adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale, it feels so much more real than it ever did before – women’s anger, in general, is so much more palpable.

I don’t know how close we are to Gilead, and I can’t know. But I think it’s time women started to worry. Our rights are being stripped and eroded bit by bit, and just because it isn’t happening in your country doesn’t mean that it won’t happen.

I would like to finish with a quote from Offred, the protagonist in The Handmaid’s Tale, that has stuck in my mind: “I used to think of my body as an instrument of pleasure, or as a means of transportation or an implement for the accomplishment of my will ... Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping”.