“Full Gilead”
The Handmaid’s Tale. I’m guessing that by now you have read the book, seen the TV series or have just heard what it’s all about. If not then get the book/audiobook, it is chilling.
For a while now, husband and I have been discussing how long before the USA goes 'full Gilead’. It started with debates about how women victims of rape and sexual abuse are marginalised in America when the male who perpetrated the crime is ‘a good boy’, from a ‘good family’ with ‘a promising career ahead of him’ if he doesn’t get a sex conviction with time in prison. So young men are rewarded for their crimes by being told they are lucky this time because previously they have never been caught and they must never be caught in the future or their good luck might run out. The women who are their victims are belittled, rejected, told it is their fault it happened to them, they ‘asked for it’ by their behaviour or the way they dressed and they never receive justice. Instead they live with a life of sadness and anger hating the way they have been treated, believing there is no justice and feeling discarded like they do not matter in comparison with the man.
None of this is new though is it? In 2018 Cork, Ireland a 27 year old man was acquitted of raping a 17 year old girl (age of consent to sexual intercourse is 17 in Ireland) as he pleaded it was consensual sex. Nothing particularly odd in that you might say, we do not know the full story as it was not reported and maybe it was consensual. Yes, except……his lawyer (female) in her summing up intimated that perhaps the victim was up for meeting someone and said "You have to look at the way she was dressed. She was wearing a thong with a lace front." I mention the lawyer's sex because she is commenting on a fellow woman and however subconscious the thought her opinion will have more weight with the people listening. ‘She must know what she is talking about because she is also a woman.' The victim’s thong she was wearing that night was produced as evidence in court (I will continue to call her the victim even though he was acquitted because, I believe that if we are producing her underwear in court to prove her intentions of behaviour that night, then she did not receive a fair trial).
Next we are looking at the abuse of overturning Roe V Wade in the USA. I am very grateful that I live in a country where a foetus is not a living human being until it has been born and can sustain its own life, where the mother is viewed as a human life who has priority over the life she is growing. I am reassured that if my life is in danger by continuing the pregnancy I can choose to terminate it so that I can live another day, perhaps choose another pregnancy or choose to raise a life in a different way. The USA for all its reported freedoms, has reversed that decision and now the woman is viewed as less than a foetus, it is ok to risk her life even if her foetus cannot survive when she dies. Women are condemned to die just for being pregnant with a pregnancy they cannot sustain for whatever reason. It must be heartbreaking to know that you mean nothing,that the states believe continuing the pregnancy that will kill you (and the foetus) is more important than ending the pregnancy to save your life. Why? Because you are a woman. Ironic that as soon as that foetus is born, if she is female, she will suffer the same discrimination.
Finally, back to clothing which is the real reason I chose to discuss this briefly today. It seems that the Missouri State House Republicans have passed into law that female members have to cover their dress with a second layer, suggesting that a jacket should be worn at all times. Note that this is not a rule/law for men. I’ll just repeat that, they have passed into law a dress code for women in The House in Missouri State but have not passed a law regarding dress code for men. Apparently it is not stopping here, the next law they want to pass is that women have to wear sleeves in The House. Still no law of dress for men.
As for ‘full Gilead’ I think it is closer than we would like to think.
