A new symbol of women’s rights is turning up at protests from Latin America to the British Isles and across the US. The scarlet cloak and white bonnet outfit from “The Handmaid’s Tale” is being worn by women rallying for abortion rights and fighting against policies and politicians seeking to restrict those rights.
In Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, the striking red outfit is worn by fertile women forced into childbearing servitude. Recently, the handmaids are seen in Hulu’s Emmy-winning, critically acclaimed series based on Atwood’s book.
But now, the handmaid’s cloak has been most recently worn by protesters in Argentina where the country’s senate recently voted to reject a law that would decriminalize abortion in the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.
Abortion is completely legal in only three places in Latin America. Argentina would have become the largest country in Latin America to legalize the procedure in the predominantly Catholic region.
Related: Facing a groundswell of support for legal abortion, Argentina’s Catholic Church moderates its tone
The red cloak was seen on the streets of Dublin during demonstrations ahead of a referendum on abortion law and several protests in the US.
Just about “everyone seeing these groups of women know what they mean in the context of the individual protest, whether it be Ireland, Argentina, or Arizona,” author Margaret Atwood told The Guardian.
She added: “In countries that prohibit birth control and reproductive health information, the state claims ownership of women’s bodies through enforced childbearing. What the costume is really asking viewers is: do we want to live in a slave state?”
Here’s a selection of photographs with the handmaid protesters.
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