In the Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale, we watch a woman named June (portrayed by Elisabeth Moss) jog through the streets of Cambridge, Massachusetts. As she runs, a female pedestrian turns to scowl at her attire—running shorts and tank top. Then, when June and her running friend Moira enter a coffee shop, the male barista calls them “fucking sluts.”
I can relate. As a runner, I have had my fair share of harassing encounters on the streets of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Cars slow down so passengers can catcall. Drivers offer to give me a ride to their homes. Once, a group of young men began running with me, surrounding my path, and commenting on my body.
Last year, Runner’s World ran a story titled: “Running While Female,” reporting that 43 percent of all women experienced sexual harassment on their runs; for women under the age of 30, the number was 58 percent.
Sexual harassment and abuse has become an everyday experience, like eating breakfast or brushing our teeth. How does it compare to the dystopian vision presented in The Handmaid’s Tale?
In the acclaimed series, based on Margaret Atwood’s 1986 novel, we see the harassment women suffer as early indications of the emergence of an aggressive patriarchy named “Gilead.” June essentially loses her rights as an independent woman. She is forced to join a new class of young women, brainwashed into believing that their primary function is to bear children, and that any sexual violence visited upon them is an act of God and the fault of the victim. June is sent to a household where she is a sex slave, forced into a bizarre monthly impregnation ritual held by the Commander and his wife.
Chris Drumm (Flickr)
Sexual harassment is every day—like eating breakfast or brushing our teeth. How does it compare to the dystopian vision presented in The Handmaid’s Tale?
Mary McCarthy, in a 1986 New York Times review, excoriated the novel, claiming she could not see evidence that women would ever face such a future.
I wonder what she would say today. Consider:
In 2013, Montana district Judge G. Todd Baugh sentenced a male teacher to thirty days in jail for raping a fourteen-year-old female student. The judge questioned the validity of the rape because the girl, he surmised, acted older than fourteen. The girl committed suicide prior to her teacher seeing the inside of a courtroom.
Rick Santorum, during his 2012 presidential bid, stated that a baby resulting from rape is a “gift from God.”
In 2013, Texas representative Jodie Laubenberg likened rape kits to abortion, while arguing against exempting rape victims from a bill proposing abortion.
With our current President leading the way, rooms of all-white, all-male politicians make decisions about female health. Lawmakers, meanwhile, consider sexual assault a “pre-existing condition” and work to cut reproductive health care funding to lower income women.
If you aren’t yet convinced, consider the defense of Judge Roy Moore by people who claim family values. The governor of Alabama, Kay Ivey, says she has “no reason to disbelieve” Moore’s accusers, but would rather have a Republican in office. Meanwhile, conservative ministers are defending Moore, claiming his accusers are not victims but perpetrators of an attack upon men.
I first read Margaret Atwood’s novel as an undergraduate in the 1990s. In light of the Hulu series, as well as the current social and political climate, I decided to revisit the novel with my students at the four-year institution where I am an adjunct faculty.
The students identified several themes that they felt contemporized Atwood’s novel. Almost all agreed that the objectification of women and the overt sexualizing of the female body was something they witnessed on a daily basis. Movies, television, videos, advertising—all cast women as objects, undercutting their feelings of self-worth and safety. No surprise, today college age women are three times more likely to experience sexual harassment than their older counterparts.
The students identified several themes that they felt contemporized Atwood’s novel. One young woman lamented that it was easier to just “push through with your head down” than continue to rail against not being heard.
Some of the students tied this objectification to the silencing of women at school, home, and work. They explained how exhausting it is to have to fight for a voice—especially when no one seems to listen. One young woman lamented that it was easier to just “push through with your head down” than continue to rail against not being heard. This will continue once they graduate and join the ranks of one in three women who experience sexual harassment in the workplace.
Rape culture was unanimously identified as problematic. Students marveled at the continued rape of the handmaid despite the sterility of the aging Commander. They saw a connection between his superior status and her inferior one in Gilead, drawing parallels to how college students think today. One young man was adamant that rape culture must be ended. “Why,” he asked, “do we tell girls not to get raped, rather than teaching men to stop raping?”
So begins the slow boil.
In 2017, my students are accustomed to a culture they feel denigrates women, turning them into things to be objectified, segmented, rated, and used. It is no surprise that the Donald Trumps, Harvey Weinsteins, Louis C.K.s, Roy Moores, Al Frankens, and Charlie Roses have acted in repulsive ways. Their actions have been normalized and we are too often complacent.
Lisa Beringer, a graduate of Purdue University, is an assistant professor at Ivy Tech Community College in Fort Wayne, Indiana.