100 women dressed in 'Handmaid's Tale' garb to protest Pence in Philly on Monday

Vice President Mike Pence, photographed at left at a rally in Georgia, will be in Philadelphia Monday where 100 women from the Philadelphia area, including the one pictured at right, will don Handmaid’s Tale garb to protest his administration.

Vice President Mike Pence’s second visit to Philadelphia this summer will again be met with protests, organizers said, this time with a dystopian theme.

One hundred people dressed as handmaids from the novel-turned-Hulu series The Handmaid’s Tale will join protesters outside of the Union League Monday evening. Pence is expected to host a fund-raiser at the club for fellow Republican Lou Barletta, who is running against Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.).

Samantha Goldman, an organizer of the protest, said that 100 women signed up to dress as handmaids. Over the past few weeks, they have been meeting in living rooms and coffee shops to sew the scarlet robed costumes and make white bonnets.

Handmaid-themed protests have gained popularity in recent months from Washington, D.C. to England and Ireland. In March, women in Texas wearing Handmaid’s Tale garb protested legislation limiting abortion access before the state senate there. In May, women in Missouri held a similar costumed protest.

In the 1985 novel by Margaret Atwood, the United States is turned into the Republic of Gilead, a military dictatorship in which fertile women are imprisoned and forced to provide children to higher-ranking families. Goldman said the group is protesting Pence for what they see as anti-woman and anti-LGBT stances.

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“We just felt that the visual of the Handmaid’s Tale costumes, a society in which women in Gilead are stripped of their most basic rights and their humanity, was appropriate,” Goldman said.

Hundreds of protesters took to Rittenhouse Square the last time Pence came to Philadelphia June 19, lining up children’s shoes to condemn President Trump’s policy of separating children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border.

Monday’s protest is organized by Goldman’s group, Refuse Fascism, in conjunction with Philadelphia’s chapter of the National Organization for Women and the Delaware County chapter of NOW.

Additional Pence protests led by NextGen Pennsyvlania are planned for between noon and 3 p.m. at City Hall.

Goldman noted that since Pence’s last visit the Supreme Court upheld Trump’s travel ban and the president nominated Brett Kavanaugh to become a justice.

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“A lot has happened since the last time he came here,” she said. “Not that it wasn’t important then, but the necessity to be heard has only increased.”