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Not Going Back

Writer's picture: jnwashington0905jnwashington0905

Today a group of us watched the Hand Maid’s Tale published in 1985, written by Margaret Atwood. The book was adapted into a movie in 1990, starring Natasha Richardson, Faye Dunaway, and Aidan Quinn. It was eerie to hear the dialogue in the movie and reflect on the current political climate in the country, especially in relation to Project 2025. The movie highlights issues like the criminalization of IVF, the outlawing of LGBTQIA relationships, the elimination of education for women, restrictions on women's access to healthcare, the banning of reproductive rights such as birth control, the criminalization of sex outside of marriage, prohibitions on women owning property, and requiring permission for women to travel alone—all of which are closely tied to religious or Biblical values. Could we consider Margaret Atwood a prophet ahead of her time? A Prophet is one who predicts a future and forewarns us of what is to come, unfortunately we are unaware of prophetic vision until the event or events have passed, and then its too late. 

Margaret Atwood's novel was inspired by the Moral Majority, a movement that has since lost popular favor but has resurfaced indirectly as Project 2025, now closer to reality than we might think. Its influence is evident in both state and national politics, from book bans to Supreme Court battles over Roe v. Wade, and ongoing challenges to women's rights over their bodies. As a Black woman woman I see these issues with a different lens researching Black women’s history. In the movie, one of the more poignant lines is, “I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping”. The objectification of the Black female body can be traced back to figures like Sarah Baartman (Hottentot Venus), a slave whose body was displayed across Europe as if she were an exhibit. Similarly, Black women on slave auction blocks had no control over their bodies, enduring rapes, beatings, forced inspections, and forced childbearing. It would be disingenuous to mention Sarah Baartman without also addressing the sexualization of Black women today, much of which occurs with our consent—but that's a topic for another blog. This raises the question of how dehumanized we've become in our own sense of self-worth, where our value is often measured by the obvious: our buttocks and sexualization, seen by some as a measure of our personal freedom.  As Black women, we should be at the forefront of issues concerning women's bodies. Our bodies were exploited for profit during slavery, and even in death, they generated economic gain as medical cadavers, as explored in the scholarly work of Dr. Daina Ramey Berry. I remember my great-grandmother, who was from Annapolis, Maryland, warning us not to be on the streets after midnight because the student doctors might get you. Black people understood this as a reference to medical experimentation. Whether it was true, I cannot say, but it is part of the generational trauma I carry—the fear.


In the end of The Handmaid's Tale, we find Offred escaping with Mayday, the resistance movement, and living in a trailer in the mountains. She is free—or is she? Freedom is never free, is it? Do something… — Michelle Obama.

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