Anita Biressi

I am writing this blog during Season Two of Hulu's TV production of *The
Handmaid's Tale*; a drama about state-sanctioned oppression of sexual
and gender non-conformity set in the  fictional Republic of Gilead*.*
  It's tough viewing; its promises of hope, freedom and redemption
always deferred to the next episode via cliff-hangers, misdirection and
plot twists.

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJTonrzXTJs>

Margaret Attwood, the author of the 1985 dystopian novel which inspired
the series, has often been questioned about its mimetic, near-future or
prophetic qualities. When asked, in a recent New York Times interview,
whether *The Handmaid's Tale* is a prediction of our social future, the
author replied: 'No, it isn't a prediction, because predicting the
future isn't really possible...... Let's say it's an anti-prediction: If
this future can be described in detail, maybe it won't happen' (in
Atwood 2017). Her reply prompted me to think about the trajectories of
history and how we can trace these in our own TV histories. It seemed to
me that there is evidence in our own TV past of the future we might have
had and the one which might still come to pass.

###### Their future, not ours

It's comforting to regard *The Handmaid's Tale* as an extrapolation of
'abroad', of 'over there' rather than of 'over here' when watching it
the British context. Surely, we might say to ourselves, it reflects
fundamentalist practices in the Arab world or it's a prediction,
perhaps, of what might happen in North America (the story's setting).
British reviewers, pundits and viewers have commented on the drama's
unsparing depiction of the abuses of women with reference to middle
eastern theocracies or to its obvious (albeit unplanned) dialogue with
Trump's America. Trump's America itself is lazily referenced by British
reviewers as cauldron of boiling conservatism; fuelled by guns,
god-botherers and conservative moms. The Times Scotland editorial noted:
'It's 30 years since I read the novel but this drama feels like it was
written yesterday, with its echoes of Boko Haram's rapacious brutality
and the cynical pieties of the American religious right' (Farquharson
2017). The second series, now on British screens, focuses on heroine's
Offred's/June's desperate refugee flight from slavery to freedom;
prompting more references to the USA with reviewers noting the recent
deaths of Mexicans crossing the borderlands.

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Offred as refugee Season 2. Source:
[TVLine](https://tvline.com/2018/05/02/the-handmaids-tale-recap-season-2-episode-3-baggage/){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}
:::

The closest British commentators have come to linking the drama with
their own culture has been through a couple of passing references to the
restrictive abortion laws of Northern Ireland. One explanation for this
lack of immediate resonance, for British viewers, might lie in the grand
guignol violence of gender/state terror played out in the series. The
drama showcases domestic cruelty, medical violation and militaristic
torture in ingenious variation. Its relentless punishment of feisty
independent women outdoes every other 'quality' TV drama and that's
surely saying something. Its theatre of horror invites us to consider
the brutalist, shameless and abusive logic of totalitarian power -- the
notorious boot stamping on the human face for ever. And once we have
considered it, we may well put it aside as truly horrible, yes, but
fortunately, for us British at least, 'it couldn't happen here.'

It was only during those moments when the drama chronicled the lead-up
to the totalitarian coup and the establishment of Gilead that my own
feeling of British immunity and privilege began to crumble. Narrative
flashbacks revealed Offred's/June's experience of everyday sexism and
the slow erosion of her rights. In one scene, June requires her
husband's authorisation to access birth control. In another, she is
interrogated by a hospital social worker after she allegedly sent her
sick son to school so that she could work. Fans have not uploaded these
low-key moments to Youtube -- perhaps they really are unremarkable. Yet
these perfectly wrought scenes highlighted the quietly implemented,
sneaky, incremental pressures on women to conform and the difficulty of
resisting without being judged 'unreasonable.' It was these scenes which
uncannily returned me to the mid 1980s and to the pressures on women to
ignore the siren calls of feminism and equality in favour of home and
hearth. It was these scenes which reminded me of the alternative
historical route we might have followed . The evidence for this might be
found, if we look hard enough, in TV and news archives.

###### The Campaign for the Feminine Woman

*The Handmaids Tale* was published in 1985 -- at the peak of the
Thatcher/Reagan years -- and in the very same year that the British
Campaign for the Feminine Woman (CFW, launched 1978) judiciously changed
its name to Concern for Family and Womanhood. Its logo featured a
silhouette of a man with his woman following submissively behind. It
kept the Campaign for Feminine Womanhood as its strap-line . The
organisation's journal was called *Vive la Différence*. I remember
looking at the leaflet and the logo and not knowing what to make of it.
I remember feeling unsettled and bemused. Was the CFW a crank pressure
group or a force to be reckoned with? I had no idea.

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[![Picture: David Stayt , founder of CFW
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sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/handmaidstale2.png)

Picture: David Stayt , founder of CFW [\[i\]](#_edn1)
:::

The group, led by David Stayt, argued that feminism was a dangerous
social perversion, a 'cancer' and contrary to the biological and
historical truth that women should defer to men. Stayt disclosed that 'a
woman needs and wants to be dominated by a man' (McAslan 1992: 48). In
his article 'Taming a Feminist', Stayt described a film which
illustrated the CFW's views. An assertive woman is beaten by a fighter
pilot played by Richard Burton. Stayt writes: 'After a final smack she
looks up to him in admiration and says: "You are what a man should be ..
I am nothing compared to you." So at last the once ardent feminist ..
has discovered the wonder of being a feminine woman and sees the man as
rightly her master' (in Neate 1988). While CFW favoured equal pay for
equal work this was purely theoretical -- after all, women's biology
made them unsuitable for so many jobs from police officers to chief
executives. Nursing and nursery work seemed to be the only proper
options. The campaign's biological argument was also rooted in Biblical
scripture which placed the traditional family at the heart of social
good.

The Campaign chimed with the radical conservative politics of the era
which championed unalloyed 'family values' and the 'Victorian values' of
simpler times. 1982 saw the founding of the Family Policy Group which
laid responsibility for social progress entirely within the family unit.
In the same year, Margaret Thatcher's advisor Ferdinand Mount published
*The Subversive Family* which was subtitled *An Alternative History of
Love and Marriage*. In Mount's version of history, the 'timeless'
nuclear family continued across the centuries to defy hierarchies,
churches and ideologies. Mount claimed to speak for the 'ordinary man'
and the 'ordinary family' which needed to resist the wrong-headed
critiques of feminists, anarchists, hippies and utopians (Nunn
2002:110-1).

The CFW argument intersected nicely with this broader political
rhetoric. Its key arguments come across well in the BBC Open Door public
access programme entitled *In Praise of Femininity and the Feminine
Woman* (1978 29 mins, 41 secs) which is available on Youtube.

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The show featured Stayt, his wife, his daughter and other female
supporters such as Helen Whiting (below).

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The highpoint, perhaps, of the Open Door production is the almost
parodic feature 'A doctor explains' in which a GP presents the
biological case for women's adherence to their 'natural sex roles'
(using the illustration below).

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sizes="(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px"}](https://cstonline.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/handmaidstale4.png)

It may be surprising to learn the extent to which Concern for Family and
Womanhood made solid inroads into the media. By 1988 its leading members
had 'received coverage of their views in 26 newspaper and magazine
articles (often long features and interviews), 13 radio programmes and
seven television programmes. They turned down a further five invitations
to appear on television' (Neate 1988). Polly Neate, writing in the
Guardian, asked 'How can the influence of such a tiny organisation be
measured? Sheer hard work has produced a surprisingly high media
profile... Compare the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, another
pressure group \[whose\] conference brochure states that "it becomes
increasingly difficult to get the press to take an interest in our
activities"'.

Stayt's fringe status seemed to place in him high demand. By all
accounts he was articulate, approachable and intelligent. It is perhaps
the banality, affability and downright ordinariness of the middle-
England extremist which affords him such unfettered access to the public
realm. In this regard, Stayt resembles some of our minor and very vocal
extremist politicians today; who do not seem to struggle to find a
platform for their views. And it's worth noting how easily and quickly
these figures can re-route the rails of social progress. The Campaign
for the Feminine Woman is a reminder that in parallel version of history
Britain might have been another Gilead.

 

###### References

Atwood, M. (2017) 'What 'The Handmaid's Tale' Means in the Age of Trump'
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/books/review/margaret-atwood-handmaids-tale-age-of-trump.html){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}

Farquharson, K. (2017) 'Here comes the sun -- don't dress like an
idiot'. The Times (Scotland) 6 June.

McAslan, I. (1992) 'Pornography or misogyny : fear and the absurd' in D.
Currie and V. Raoul (eds.) *Anatomy of Gender: Women's Struggle for the
Body*. Canada: Carleton University Press :37-52.

Neate, P. (1988) 'Entertaining Mr Stayt -- The Campaign for the Feminine
Woman is a publicist's dream, the tabloids love it.' The Guardian 13
December*.*

Nunn, H. (2002) *Thatcher, Politics and Fantasy* , London: Lawrence and
Wishart.

 

###### Footnote:

[\[i\]](#_ednref1){#_edn1} All webgrabs are from the Open Door Broadcast
at
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3_Z7v9puAo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3_Z7v9puAo){target="_blank"
rel="noopener"}

------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Anita Biressi** is Professor of Media and Society in the Department of
Media, Culture and Language at the University of Roehampton. She is
Convenor of the MA Media, Communication and Culture.


I am writing this blog during Season Two of Hulu’s TV production of
<em>
 The Handmaid’s Tale
</em>
; a drama about state-sanctioned oppression of sexual and gender non-conformity set in the  fictional Republic of Gilead
<em>
 .
</em>
It’s tough viewing; its promises of hope, freedom and redemption always deferred to the next episode via cliff-hangers, misdirection and plot twists.

Postagens de Rogue Scholar

THE HANDMAID’S TALE AND THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE FEMININE WOMAN: (TV’S) ALTERNATIVE HISTORIES