"The Handmaid’s Tale" In the Age of Conservative Influencers

In the past two years alone, there has been a spike in conservatism in our government that has threatened civil rights, first with the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, and several bills trying to erase nondiscrimination laws towards the LGBTQ+ community and laws that will limit a transgender person’s right to transition. Amidst these regressions in our democracy are conservative social media stars, coaxing young people into dangerous beliefs.

A recent conservative star has been Andrew Tate, a 36-year old British kick-boxing champion known for his misogynistic takes such as saying women are more attractive when they are 18 and 19, rather than 26 because “they have been through less dick” - or that that female sexual assault victims should “bear some responsibility”. Through being wanted for arrest for sex trafficking young women employed in his webcam business, a new personality has come into light, who some are calling a “female Andrew Tate”. Her name is Hannah Pearl Davis, better known as “Pearl”, and she’s a 26 year-old self proclaimed “anti-feminist”. At first, people thought she was being satirical or was just desperate for attention, but as her following has grown she’s started being taken seriously. After scrolling through her twitter account for just five minutes, I immediately saw a picture she’d posted wearing a shirt saying “Women Shouldn’t Vote” - with twelve and a half million views. Other tweets from her profile in the last few months alone include: “Stop sleeping with fat chicks!!”, “Men like pure women not whores”, and “I’m transphobic. I am in fact afraid of trans people.” With almost two million followers on Youtube, you would think she’d consider the effects her platform may have on young girls and the way they view themselves.

“She doesn’t make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn’t seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she’s been taken at her word.”

Serena Joy, a character from The Handmaid’s Tale, rose to fame in this dystopian novel similar to how Pearl has today. Serena was a christian gospel singer on a network television show and rose to fame preaching christian, conservative values. Offred infers that Serena had some influence on the evolution of Gilead, that she was “taken at her word”, which is why people like Pearl are so terrifying - her words are ridiculous but she may have more influence than we assume. What’s funny is, much like Serena, if Pearl were to be taken at her word and the things she’s claimed to want came true, she would lose all her status. The values she’s capitalized on have the capacity to render her powerless, and that doesn’t seem to scare her.

“We thought she was funny. Or Luke thought she was funny. I only pretended to think so. Really she was a little frightening. She was in earnest.”

It’s fun to sit and laugh at Pearl, whose political takes seem so ridiculous that we think she can’t truly believe it. And we know she doesn’t truly believe it, but what we don’t see are the people endorsing her, praising her for making these speeches. These people have the true power to take what Pearl says seriously and make it a reality. We see “Women Shouldn’t Vote!” pasted on her shirt and think of what a joke she must be, but the truth is that there was a time when women couldn’t vote and there is very little reason why, if the wrong people were in power, we couldn’t go back to that time. The Handmaid’s Tale is so horrifying and still so topical today because we know it wouldn’t be impossible for the US to head towards Gilead.