Welcome back to Gilead. Feminists are re-purposing The Handmaid’s Tale costumes they debuted in 2017 to protest Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. It’s a bad look for a number of reasons.
The comparison is to the book/show’s fictional world of Gilead, where women are raped and forced to serve as human incubators amid an infertility crisis. That’s not exactly Kavanaugh’s America. But by haunting the halls of Senate office buildings dressed as the women of Gilead, they’re hoping to raise the stakes, stirring disproportionate fears that heighten pressures on centrist Republicans and Democrats to vote against the nominee. From some of them, it’s dishonest; from others, it’s delusional.
But the costumes are one part of a broader strategy. Take this video from a group called Mainers for Responsible Leadership, in which one woman with a pre-existing condition tells Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, “If you vote yes on Kavanaugh, you’re voting to kill me.”
If @SenatorCollins votes for Kavanaugh, we will replace her. Join the campaign – pledge $20.20 to a Collins opponent at https://t.co/tngVyH7BG3 #StopKavanaugh #mepolitics pic.twitter.com/ioUS7HUY0Z
— Mainers for Accountable Leadership (@mfalpac) September 3, 2018
While some advocates understand that’s strategic hyperbole, the larger problem is that this kind of feminist fearmongering has become the preferred approach of the women’s movement. The danger is that anyone else buys into it.
The threat of Justice Kavanaugh is not of a transformation into Gilead, nor is it even a strong guarantee of an overturned Roe v. Wade, which in and of itself is no guarantee of a complete national ban on abortion. Even if you grant feminists what I consider the false premise (absolutely central to their worldview) that abortion access is an essential component of women’s rights, Kavanaugh is still not an apocalyptic threat. For what it’s worth, he’s said he believes the case is “settled law,” apparently to the approval of Collins, who supports abortion rights.
The ironic effect of this strategy is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts, convincing some women that the world is much worse than it is — which, to the extent that perception is reality, actually makes it that way. Even amid all the banal hyperbole that dominates our politics, the Kavanaugh-Gilead comparisons are glaringly stupid.
