GOP officials ‘literally’ want ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ to be reality. Missouri women say no
Photos of women dressed as the titular characters of author Margaret Atwood’s epic “The Handmaid’s Tale” outside a St. Louis government building last month continue to surface in the media. Nine women braved an early morning wind chill in red robe costumes to protest Missouri’s health department tracking menstrual cycles.
The women’s only visible characteristics were their shoes and eyeglasses. Their identities remained poignantly hidden as their names went missing from the accompanying captions.
Missouri is purposefully tracking women’s periods. Let that soak in. Randall Williams, the state health director, admitted under oath to actually having the spreadsheet.
Williams is the same former North Carolina official who reversed warnings about cancer-causing chemicals in well water in that state. He was subsequently appointed by former Gov. Eric Greitens (who has his own disturbing views of women) to run the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
In short order, Williams mandated that abortion patients have two medically unnecessary vaginal exams. A national public outcry, led by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, erupted. Abortion providers stopped performing the invasive exams, citing their oath to do no harm. Then Williams walked back his order to insist on one single vaginal exam, still cruel and invasive.
Williams continues to further the GOP’s sick, misogynistic agenda. In May, Gov. Mike Parson signed Missouri’s extreme abortion ban, House Bill 126, which criminalizes physicians and contains no exceptions for rape or incest. Every Republican state legislator voted for the unconstitutional ban. Many attended the bill signing in the state Capitol and regularly tweet with glee about their support for forced birth.
Top Missouri GOP strategist Gregg Keller tweeted last month that he and former Missouri House Speaker Tim Jones “will not stop until Missouri is literally the Handmaids Tale.” Yes, that was a positive reference to the fictional series where women are enslaved, ceremonially raped and treated as breeding vessels. In real life, the GOP is attempting to reduce women to faceless handmaids without bodily autonomy.
Williams and the entire GOP entourage seem to have gone mad.
However, Williams and his allies forgot to strip women of one thing: their vote.
On Nov. 5, St. Louis women abandoned their red robes and overwhelmingly elected a progressive Democrat to a suburban House legislative district formerly held by Missouri Republican Party Executive Director Jean Evans. That win echoed across the country, as women voters rose up against GOP misogyny, flipping districts to blue.
Women in Virginia were so angry that they helped Democrats take control of both legislative chambers, producing their very first female speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, in a state known for advocating invasive vaginal ultrasounds.
Missouri women simply refuse to acquiesce.
Thousands of women of both parties have added their names to suburban newspaper ads denouncing Parson’s extreme abortion ban. More than 100 female physicians and professors pooled resources and published their names opposing HB 126 in a full-page St. Louis Post-Dispatch ad. Angry suburban women confronted a speechless Parson in an elevator as he tried to sneak into St. Louis County for a GOP media event.
In the GOP’s quest for domination of women, they forgot about women’s true power. They might want to bone up on Rebecca Traister’s book, “Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger” as the 2020 elections draw near.
Williams and Parson should note that like in the current season of the TV adaptation of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” a revolution is happening in real time on women’s Facebook pages and in their everyday lives throughout the state. The revolt at the ballot box has already begun.
Heed Margaret Atwood’s message. Don’t be a silent handmaid.
Stacey Newman, a former Missouri state legislator, is the executive director of ProgressWomen, a statewide social justice group focused on justice and equality issues.
This story was originally published December 4, 2019 at 5:00 AM.