by Claire Sbardella
Last summer I read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. No more relevant time, I thought: what with the Josh Duggar scandal that had occurred earlier that summer, and the rise of misogynistic demagogues such as Donald Trump. The speculative fiction novel portrays a dystopian environment where a theocratic, totalitarian government overtakes the United States, and where strict interpretation of the Bible reaches its ultimate conclusion. One real world parallel to this is the Quiverfull sect, while another is misogyny in public figures. An example of a family that follows Quiverfull ideology is the Duggar family, former stars of 19 Kids and Counting. Donald Trump, currently a major public figure, has on numerous occasions displayed enormous misogyny, racism, and fear. An important outcome of both is an emphasis on female purity and their role of serving men, which leads to increased sexualization of women and distorted interactions between genders.
Atwood draws the principles for her theocracy from the Old Testament. For example, women were treated as the property of men and were bought and sold. If a man was rich enough to have female slaves, he was also intimate with them. For example, Abraham, the father of the Israelites, had a wife but also slept with his servant Hagar, eventually having children with both of them, which were considered his. The theocracy of The Handmaid’s Tale codifies these tenets and regularizes them. The hierarchy for women lies underneath men. The highest role a women can aspire to is that of Wife, but many, including the main character, are Handmaidens, women whose sole purpose is to bear children. To further subjugate women, the government does not allow them to read or even have names that signify independence from men – the main character’s name, Offred, means “of Fred.” Even clothes oppress: for example Offred’s red dress has a “skirt… ankle-length, full, gathered to a flat yoke that extends over the breasts, the sleeves are full” (Atwood 2). This scarlet dress demonstrates her rank as handmaiden, the red color symbolizing her sexual availability for procreative purposes.
As fanatical and unlikely as Atwood’s government seems, it is not much more extreme than some well-known subcultures today. When taken into context with the Duggars’ religion (stars of the former reality TV show 19 Kids and Counting), the religious sect Quiverfull, Atwood’s dystopia seems more immediate and pronounced. The name of the sect comes from Psalm 127:3, “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord. . ./Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them.” Like the theocracy in The Handmaid’s Tale, practitioners desire to return to fundamental Biblical principles. Because women in this movement are expected to be homemakers and child-rearers, education beyond high school is discouraged. Modest clothing, such as long skirts and loose tops, are required for women. Birth control of any type is not allowed, due to the fact that they deem separating sex from procreation immoral.
As seen in the case of Josh Duggar, subjugating women under man’s authority leads to their heightened sexualization and exploitation. Josh was raised within the Quiverfull movement and starred on 19 Kids and Counting. He was later found guilty of various sexual offenses, the worst of them the molestation of his younger sisters. His parents covered the crime, and it remained hidden until the investigation by the news website In Touch. The nonchalance of Josh’s parents and their insistence that such “sexual exploration” was normal in their community was as disturbing as the molestation itself.
The psychological damage and fear that Offred endures day to day as a Handmaiden parallels that of the gross traumas Josh inflicted on the women in his life. Josh’s crimes were hidden until the information was leaked last year, meaning that the victims were forced to keep their trauma quiet for years. Not only that, but Josh later wrote “Modesty was a factor. . . . It was not uncommon for my younger siblings to come out of their baths naked or with a towel.” Here blame is leveled on the victims themselves, small children. Offred too is trapped. She cannot speak to other women except about the barest trivialities, for fear of being spied on and executed. The slightest interactions between men and women are sexualized: “these two men . . . aren’t yet permitted to touch women. They touch with their eyes instead and I move my hips a little, feeling the full red skirt sway around me” (Atwood 4).
Margaret Atwood’s searing and thought-provoking novel demonstrates the ultimate conclusion of systemic female oppression. While I do not believe that modern society as a whole holds such stringent worldviews (there is a reason that Quiverfull is only a small sect), the book can help shed light on the Duggar scandal by imagining a world in which women suffer extreme lack of agency, and the heightened sexualization which occurs when gender roles are enforced.