It has become a disruptive element of the massive anti-government protests rocking Israel: a group of women dressed in red robes and white caps, who walk with their heads bowed and their hands together. They are dressed as characters from Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” and the television series of the same name.
The women, growing in number as protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies intensify, say they are protesting to protect themselves from what they say will be a dark future if the government goes ahead with its plan to reform the judiciary. .
“This demonstration is a representation of the things we fear,” said Moran Zer Katzenstein, founder of the women’s rights group Bonot Alternativa, or “Building an Alternative,” which is behind the protest.
“Women they will be the first to suffer“, he added.
With a decision that has drawn widespread opposition, the Netanyahu government is pushing to weaken the Supreme Court and limit the independence of the judiciary, moves that he says will return power to lawmakers and make the courts less interventionist. Critics of him argue that the project jeopardizes Israel’s system of checks and balances and pushes it towards autocracy.
The reform has led to tens of thousands of people to protest on the streets every week.
Women dressed in red robes do not go unnoticed in the crowd, making the usual protest scenes an otherworldly spectacle.
Before one of the demonstrations, a group of women traveled in disguise on the train from Tel Aviv to Jerusalemtransforming the carriages and the platform into what could have been a scene from the Hulu series.
On another occasion, they surrounded the central fountain in the coastal city of Tel Aviv, a place where there are often children in strollers and dogs on leashes. Also they have blocked street crossings, sticking to his role during protests and keeping silent as they walked in formation.
Her striking appearance is meant to underscore the idea that Israel, which considers itself the only democracy in the Middle East, could become a chilling dystopia in which women would be stripped of their rights.
Atwood’s novel
Atwood’s 1985 novel about a futuristic patriarchal society in which robed servant girls are forced to bear children for the leaders, has re-emerged in recent years as a cultural landmark thanks to the popular television series. His themes of female submission and male domination they have resonated with women today, who see threats in the limits of abortion rights or, in the case of Israel, in the rise of a conservative and religious government.
In the government, the most right-wing in the history of Israel, it is overwhelming the majority of male employees. Only nine of the 64 members of Netanyahu’s coalition are women. The ultra-Orthodox parties, which are key components of the coalition, strongly deny the inclusion of women among their members.
Economy Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said that men and women should not be allowed to serve together in combat military units, while his government partners openly support discrimination against LGBTQ people and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The costume, which has come to embody globally the threat to women under patriarchy, is used in protests elsewhere. American women opposing former President Donald Trump’s conservative Supreme Court nominees have donned the garb, as have Iranian women demonstrating in Britain in support of protests in Iran and Polish women calling for the right to abortion is preserved.
But since the crisis in Israel shows no sign of abating, the women in red have become a mainstay of the protests across the country and their number is growing. About a thousand women wore the robes at a recent demonstration in Tel Aviv.
They are also attracting attention. Atwood herself retweeted several messages about them. And Simcha Rothman, the legislator who chairs the parliamentary committee leading the reform call, has criticized them and assures that the legal changes will only strengthen women’s rights in Israel.
“I am attentive to protests and demonstrations and ready to respond to any concerns about the legal plan. What do I not accept? A fear campaign that falsely claims that Israel will become ‘The Handmaid’s Tale'”, he tweeted earlier in the month. “The reform will not harm the guarantees of women.”
Zer Katzenstein, who gave up a career in international brand marketing to lead the protest, said he would not count on Rothman, a religious Jew and conservative ideologue, to protect his rights.
The protest is not an exaggeration of the direction Israel could take, as some have said, but rather a warning light, he declared.
“We don’t think we’re going to wake up and realize we live in Gilead,” he said, referring to the name of the fictional republic from Atwood’s book.
“But we fear that this is something progressive. First here and then there and another and another“He added. “Our message is that we are drawing a line and we are not going to let that happen, not even a little bit.”
Associated Press
Translation: Elisa Carnelli