When Women Attack Women: The Handmaid’s Tale and the Early 21st Century

by Nicolette Westfall

Continuing on from the Blog for Choice Day post about women and reproductive rights, today’s piece looks at women as a factor of suppression. The potential for women’s equality is hampered by divisive actions between women on behalf of men’s interests. When employed as a coping strategy, such actions result in maintenance of the status quo and damages to the gains made by feminism. A comparison of segregation within The Handmaid’s Tale to the lives of current high profile women (Ann Coulter, Hillary Clinton, and Britney Spears) reveals that women themselves often provide ammunition in the ongoing war against their own rights and validity.

Britney Spears, a.k.a. “Titney,” was raised as a sexual commodity for mainstream consumption by her own mother. Today, as she publicly grapples with issues of motherhood and drug use, the public debates over what role her mother, Lynne Spears, played in Britney’s downfall. A recent article in OK Magazine announcing the pregnancy of Lynn’s younger daughter, Jaime Lynn, points to a woman who willingly objectified an underage Britney to rake in the money. While Lynne asked people to “Just say prayers” for Britney, she only partially admitted to capitalist parenting, claiming that she simply could not supervise Britney, who grew up touring, because she had other kids to raise. Such comments are an attempt to justify the neglect while omitting her direct role in sexually exploiting Britney. The American Dream divided mother and daughter. The only consolation might be that the Spears women have found financial success that for some renders Britney’s consequential mental instability a minor side note generating income for the celebrity glossies.

The rupture between mother and daughter is also present In Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale; but instead of arising from willful actions, it manifests as state regulated separation. Offred and the other handmaids are not allowed to raise their own offspring, but must breed with the Commanders so that their Wives may take the coveted babies. While the birth mothers are allowed to nurse the babies for a couple months, the newborns are immediately given to the Wives so that a bond is established with them instead of the biological mothers.

Another divisive element that keeps women apart in The Handmaid’s Tale is the use of the “aunts,” who, under the guise of survival advice, train the breeders (handmaids) to be passively obedient. These women initially police the new handmaids with “electric cattle prods.” In a moment of clarity, Aunt Lydia asserts that it is the Wives whom the handmaids must guard against, not the men. The men are rarely present in the domestic sphere. Therefore the aunt is only doing her job when teaching women how to survive in a world where they are micromanaged by jealous and bitter women holding the power to dictate daily interactions, and who consistently brainwash male leaders.

The Gileadean handmaid’s ability to function in a man’s world at the cost of her own rights is similar to the actions of far right Republican pundit, Ann Coulter. Unlike Gilead aunts, the accomplished lawyer does not pretend to assist women in making it in the patriarchy. She plays it straight, like in the boy’s club, holding nothing back in her acidic approach. She has been negatively dubbed “mAnn Coulter” for her aggressively mannish and hateful presentation. Whatever her personal views are, it is her public persona that influences the like-minded in America. Although Ann is an independent, single woman, she has remarked that stupidly, women vote for Democrats—the solution is to remove women’s right to vote. The irony that feminist movements are what gave her the right to be single and independent in the first place does not even register in her speech. Promoting the far right’s agenda at the expense of women’s rights earns Coulter $25K to $50K a show. Women’s rights are an insignificant tradeoff for her personal gain.

Regardless of her monetary triumph, Coulter is still unable to break through the glass ceiling. Labeled everything from “…arch-conservative cutie…” to Cloud’s less appealing “telebimbo” and “Skank”, Coulter is firmly kept in her place as a second class body (woman), along with the objectified Britney. Criticism comes from the Republican camp. Old school conservative Daniel Borchers argues that she is a disgrace to the party and that she’s a living contradiction. Coulter’s controversial rhetoric is indicative of freedom of speech, but if she does get her way, women won’t have that manly privilege much longer.

While Coulter spews angry anti-feminism in an attempt to sway masses, Gilead women are conditioned to behave and watch. Their eyes echo God’s “eye” which covers the land; they police each other. The system is so efficient that the men do not have to lift a finger in effort. Gilead women micromanage themselves to the point that Offred is grilled by the house Martha about where and why she obtained a single match stick. These women, aside from the rare perks of beating a token man to death in a ceremonial Patricicution, do not have many outlets for their pent up emotions.

Though women in America rarely fight over match sticks, they do take out some of their frustrations on other women by being just as petty. Women writers such as Caryle Rivers and Rebecca Traister, among many others, have slammed Coulter for the way she dresses. Her controversial politics make her a much more acceptable target for women to objectify while voiding her arguments. Some women take it as far as criticizing presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for the clothes she wears. Fashion writer and Pulitzer Prize winner (2006) Robin Givhan devoted an article in the Washington Post to Clinton’s cleavage, arguing that the show of a lower neckline on the Senate floor (July 18, 2007) was something that made viewers uncomfortable and akin to a politician with his zipper down:“Just look away!”. Clinton’s advisor, Ann Lewis, said it was “insulting,” while Givhan back peddled by arguing there is a difference between Clinton’s neckline and breasts. Regardless, the distraction displays just how much more important a woman’s clothing is than her leadership potential.

Of course, for women like Spears, who present bottomless views for hordes of photographers in what has become known as “CrotchGate”, it’s her public lack of clothes that has women debating, whether they want to or not. Camille Paglia argues Spears is destroying everything feminism has achieved, while waxer Cindy Barshop argues stars are just comfortable and can bare all because they are “groomed”. Reactionary divisions and labeling Spears “white trash” is not the answer according to Liz Funk, who asserts that regardless of the loss of feminist gains through over revealing female stars, Spears has clearly been eaten up by the machine and needs support.

The competitive female preoccupation with clothing and all its rigid trappings is examined to great length in The Handmaid’s Tale. At one point in the story, Offred, who must wear clothing akin to a burqa, encounters tourists from Japan wearing Westernized style skirts, nylons, and heels. While appalled, she has mixed feelings for the sexualized attire. She longs for the freedom to be a prettied woman, and yet she also thinks of Aunt Lydia’s argument that modesty is protection from external penetration. The question arises of whether such a concept as modesty can be applied to a slave whose body is controlled at all times by the male regime. The government enforced covering of females also leads to their segregation by the colour coded gowns they wear. Only the poor women, who are responsible for all household tasks, get to wear multi-coloured dresses, but they are “cheap and skimpy.” Later, the thrill of being able to wear more freeing clothes, the left over remnants of Western fashion, draws Offred in as she’s forced to attend a sex club. She likens the sleazy, sequined outfit to “freedom” and a chance to “sneer at the Aunts” who have tried to condition the breeders into accepting the blandness of the piety façade. Her commander argues that women bought new outfits in the old days because they instinctively knew that men, by “Nature,” needed variety when it came to women.

Famous women are not only trivialized by what they wear, but by the fact that they are women. Under such conditions even the mother-daughter bond disintegrates. The totalitarian marginalization of the female sex in The Handmaid’s Tale is merely an extension of what both men and women prescribe to today, if reactions to famous women are any indication. Watching women tear each other down in competition for male attention and unattainable approval has changed my perspective on the issue. Making enemies of fellow women is a waste of time and only serves to keep us divided. When we do, we effectively keep the glass ceiling in place, making ourselves the oppressors.