218rdinary is just code for what you’re used to.
In 1986, the year I was born, a New York Times
review of Margaret Atwood’s famous
dystopian thriller The Handmaid’s Tale made
reference to a ‘post-feminist’ world. Equality,
according to the reviewer, was done and
dusted by the mid-1980s. Her implication was
that the fight for women’s rights had been
won. She argued that Atwood’s cautionary tale of a United States
government being overthrown and replaced with a misogynistic,
totalitarian regime was less powerful than comparable novels like 1984.
Why? The imagined world of Gilead just seemed so ... implausible.
Fast-forward three decades and The Handmaid’s Tale is once again on
the lips and pens – and now keyboards – of cultural influencers. The
television version, starring Mad Men’s Elizabeth Moss and Orange is the
New Black’s Samira Wiley, has captivated audiences and infiltrated the
Zeitgeist. Hundreds of thousands of column inches have been dedicated
to unpacking and unpicking an old story that has been reimagined for
a new time: the time of Trump. What was once dismissed as far-fetched
has been rendered eerily possible.
Across the developed world, and certainly here in Australia, the
assumption of many – and for some time – has been the same as that
1986 reviewer: that we live in a post-feminist society. Even if women
and men weren’t truly equal, they are at least very close to being so, we
reasoned to ourselves. The election of Donald Trump exposed that
presumption of equality for the lie that it was. A man with zero
qualifications had defeated a woman with exemplary ones for the most
powerful job on the planet and that’s just how it goes. It was a brutal
reminder that many people still believe a woman should never be in
charge. That a man who brags openly about sexual assault can be
granted the right to sign laws that dictate women’s control over their
own bodies.
Commentators have since warned that global politics is at risk of
adjusting to a ‘new normal’; a ‘normal’ where principles mean little and
facts are for sale. This tells us that what is normal is simply what we’re
used to. What we call normal is not a fixed concept but an ever-changing
one that is prejudiced by perspective. The slow erosion of women’s
rights, the daily threat of nuclear war, the demonisation of immigrants
and the erratic behaviour of a President are things which America, andthe world, are in danger of growing accustomed. The new normal is
also evocative of a particularly famous phrase from The Handmaid’s Tale.
Aunt Lydia, the terrifying enforcer of Gilead’s misogynistic regime,
tells the young women in her care that they need to forget about their
old lives. “This may not seem ordinary to you now but after a time it
will,” she explains to the red-cloaked handmaids, who once enjoyed a
freedom similar to yours and mine. “It will become ordinary.”
So I ask that you to consider this: what has become ordinary, for you?
In October this year, the New York Times published an explosive report
detailing at least eight settlements between Harvey Weinstein, the
Hollywood mega-producer, and various women in his employ. Over
decades, sexual harassment and assault allegations had been covered up
in the – highly successful – pursuit of preserving Weinstein’s wealth,
power and influence in Hollywood. Weinstein commanded the kind of
wealth and influence that could make or break a young actress’s fledgling
career. The vertical imbalance of power in Hollywood, between the men
who control the money and the ingénue women who are trying to builda
career, is awfully convenient for a sexual predator. So much so that
asexual predator’s activity was permitted to became ordinary.
When actress and this month’s cover star Margot Robbie was
honoured at a Women in Hollywood event in the midst of the Weinstein
scandal, she read out a letter entitled ‘Dear Hollywood’. She said: “Being
a woman in Hollywood means you will probably have to fight through
degrading situations and will be offered chauvinistic roles by men who
think that that’s all anybody wants to see us play. But even those of us
lucky enough to have established a career in the hallowed grounds of
show business are still in the shadows of the big trees, constantly
reminded that we only grow in the sunshine they allow us.”
The painful reality of daily sexism experienced by women in
Hollywood and, of course, by women everywhere, stands in contrast to
the bright optimism of a reinvigorated feminist movement. Dressed
inpink woollen pussy hats, feminism is having its moment once more.
The exposure of Weinstein has emboldened women to be louder, to
rebut the pretence that this is ordinary, that this is normal. Millions
posted to the #MeToo hashtag on social media, revealing the prevalence
of sexual assault across industries from the law to education, from
hairdressing to finance, from work sites to corporate offices. Their
bravery was both heartbreaking and, for many, illuminating. As Robbie
paid tribute: “Their bravery and courage to speak truth to power hasWHAT NEXT
FOR WOMEN?
It was a year that began with the women’s march and ended with
the Weinstein sex abuse scandal reigniting empowerment – but
how can we make the ordinary extraordinary? By Jamila Rizvi.