The Women’s March is dissuading attendees from wearing The Handmaid’s Tale-themed outfits and using coat hanger imagery, claiming these displays are used “primarily by white women” and are not inclusive of minorities.
Organizers of Saturday’s event claimed the Handmaid’s Tale outfit excludes certain people and expressed concern that the imagery diminishes the struggles minority women have faced in the United States.
“[The outfit] erases the fact that Black women, undocumented women, incarcerated women, poor women and disabled women have always had their reproduction freedom controlled in this country,” the website said. “This is not a dystopian past or future.”
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When it comes to the coat hanger imagery, the march’s website says the organizers do not want to accidentally reinforce the idea that “self-managed abortions are dangerous, scary and harmful.”
The outfits have been worn in previous years at protests against legislation that demonstrators say would hinder reproductive rights. The red robes and white bonnets come from Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, which depicts a dystopian future where women have little to no reproductive freedoms. The novel has reached an even bigger audience after a television series based on the book was produced by Hulu.
Handmaids Army DC, a group “rallying together to fight against those who are trying to send America back to the 1950s,” said that while it would “respect [the Women’s March’s] right to shape the message of the events they organize,” it was clear the groups “have increasingly divergent agendas and methods.”
“We acknowledge that our demonstrations elicit valid mixed responses from observers, just as the pink p**** hats employed by the Women’s March did,” the organization said in a press release Sunday. “We use the Handmaids Tale uniforms to demonstrate the erasure of identity that occurs when reproductive freedoms are limited.”
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This year’s march comes as the debate around abortion resurfaces due to a new law in Texas that bans abortions after the detection of a fetal heartbeat. Last week, a Republican state representative introduced a similar bill in Florida. Those on the Left have vowed to fight the restrictions, with Attorney General Merrick Garland announcing a lawsuit against the Lone Star State on Sept. 9.
The first march was held on Jan. 21, 2017, the day after the inauguration of former President Donald Trump. It has since become an annual event.
