In the U.S., Poland and Australia, protestors have dressed in the bright crimson robes and white bonnets made famous by the book and Hulu television series the “Handmaid’s Tale” as a way to demonstrate against policies and politicians they feel are are oppressive to women. Sunday, the protest traveled to Costa Rica, where a group of women donned such costumes to the polls to demonstrate against the statements and proposed policies of presidential front-runner Fabricio Alvarado, an evangelical Christian singer and legislator whose popularity in the current campaign is tied to a platform that appears regressive in relation to women’s rights and is stridently against gay marriage. According to Global News, there were eight women in total who wore the recognizable garb from the series based on Margaret Atwood’s novel from 1985, when they showed up at a voting center in Heredia, outside San Jose.
The book, famous in its own right before its small-screen adaption, takes place in a future, dystopian America where a violent dictatorship has stripped women of their rights. Most of the women in the population are sterile. Those who remain fertile are taken captive, their bodies becoming the property of powerful men for whom they are forced to bear children.
The costumes of the handmaids have been use in real life to protest abortion restrictions in Ohio and Texas, to demonstrate against funding cuts to Planned Parenthood in Washington, D.C., in Sydney, Australia and other locales where women’s rights have been under fire or up for debate.
Full Article: Costa Rican women dress in “Handmaid’s Tale” costumes for election-day protest – Salon.com.