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How The Handmaid’s Tale inspired a protest movement

How The Handmaid’s Tale inspired a protest movement

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Turning cosplay into a political act

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Image: Hulu

In March 2017, a group of women marched into Texas’ state capitol building, dressed in the scarlet robes and puritanical white bonnets of the Handmaids from Hulu’s about-to-be-released show The Handmaid’s Tale. Based on the novel by Margaret Atwood, the show depicts a dystopian world where women are brutally stripped of their rights and exploited for reproduction. The theme was no accident; the women were there to protest a bill that would restrict abortions in the state. They sat silently in the balcony, surrounded by armed police officers, sending a message with their presence — turning cosplay into a political act, and inspiring a national anti-abortion protest movement that has adopted the costume as a de facto uniform.

The protest was loosely inspired by a Hulu promotional event prior to the launch of the series, where models donned the garb of the show’s iconic Handmaids at this year’s SXSW festival. News of the stunt reached Heather Busby, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas. “This isn’t the first time Pro-Choice Texas used costumes,” she explained in a phone interview with The Verge. “Back in 2015, we had folks in hospital gowns to protest another abortion restriction. We had an inkling that this kind of thing is effective, and the timing of the show coming out, and with the book experiencing a resurgence in popularity, it seemed like the perfect convergence of all those things.”

She and other members began to talk on Facebook about protesting a pair of anti-abortion bills: SB 415, a bill designed by the National Right to Life Committee, which would limit abortion procedures in the second trimester, and SB 25, which would protect doctors from lawsuits and let them conceal conditions that might prompt an abortion. “It was like, ‘Hey, they should go down to the capitol,’ which led a couple of folks to say, ‘Well, let’s go make costumes and do this.’”

Other activists took note. Six weeks later, protesters in Missouri donned similar costumes and protested a budget provision that would bar uninsured women from getting services from a doctor or facility that refers them to abortion providers.

Word of the protests has reached the show’s costume designer Ane Crabtree. Prior to the protests in Texas, the protesters reached out to her for costume advice. She couldn’t help directly, she told ThinkProgress, but she passed along general costuming tips, and told them that she was with them “in spirit.” As the pictures rolled in on Twitter, Crabtree said she “sat and couldn’t move for an hour” because she “was sobbing so hard with joy.”

Donning costumes isn’t exactly a new step for protesters, however. In 1913, supporters for women’s suffrage donned costumes depicting Columbia, the female personification of America. Cosplay protests aren’t limited to progressive movements, either. In 2009 and 2010, members of the Tea Party donned costumes from Revolutionary War-era figures to promote their cause.

William Temple, a historical reenactor who participated in several Tea Party protests, told The Verge that the purpose was to “remind folks of the first revolution and make the visual connection,” and of the founders’ intentions to establish a limited government.

The Handmaids from Hulu’s show — and Atwood’s book — play a similar symbolic role for protesters on the other side of the aisle. Soon after the protests in Texas, Emily Morgan of New Hampshire recognized the potential to expand the Handmaid protests across the country to state legislatures where politicians had proposed new measures to roll back abortion protections. 

When The Daily Beast broke a story in April about a New Hampshire lawmaker who secretly set up a misogynist subreddit group called The Red Pill, Morgan organized a protest where all the participants would wear Handmaid costumes. She set up a website called The Handmaid’s Coalition, and began reaching out to other groups. Their slogan was simple: “Fighting to keep fiction from becoming reality.”

The site serves as a guide for prospective organizers, while the organization’s Facebook page highlights its members in costume at various protests, as well as various efforts to introduce anti-abortion legislation. The site also hosts a manual called The Handmaid’s Guide, which offers tips on making the costumes and organizing participants, plus information on protestors’ rights.

Over the course of the summer, more Handmaid protesters appeared across the country, guided in part by The Handmaid’s Coalition. Regional groups appeared in places like Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, and even internationally, to protest anti-abortion legislation. In October, Morgan and her group spearheaded an effort to hold a protest at the state capitol in every state, and more recently, appeared at the Women’s Convention in Detroit over the weekend of October 27th. In recent months, The Handmaid’s Coalition has only grown larger, with nearly 700 members in the US, Canada, and Europe.

Morgan says the costume itself is an incredibly useful tool for demonstration, not just because of its symbolic weight, but also because of the uniform’s practical benefits. The bonnet’s wings can help protect protestors’ identities, and the uniformity of the costumes helps the group present a unified image — including for male allies who wear the costume to participate.

Crabtree says the protests were effective because they tap into something primal. While silent presence is a simple form of protest, it forces attention to the issues everywhere the costumed protestors arrive. “It was women with signs as women have done since the beginning of time,” says Crabtree, “quietly and effectively stating: This is wrong.