Culture

A Sexy Handmaid’s Tale Halloween Costume Is Being Roasted By Everyone, Including Margaret Atwood

by Max Koslowski  23 September 2018
Handmaid's Tale Halloween

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Online fashion retailer Yandy has had to pull its sexy Handmaid’s Tale outfit from their store after pushback online from all over the place — including from Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood.

The costume, named “Brave Red Maiden Costume” on Yandy’s site due to copyright restrictions, features the handmaid’s staple white cap, as well as a tight fitting red dress and red cape.

In the original novel and recent TV adaption, handmaids are sex slaves that are required to repeatedly bear kids.

After a few US news outlets jumped onto the story, Yandy quickly responded by removing the costume from their site.

“Over the last few hours, it has become obvious that our ‘Yandy Brave Red Maiden Costume’ is being seen as a symbol of women’s oppression, rather than an expression of women’s empowerment,” their statement read.

“Our initial inspiration to create the piece was through witnessing its use in recent months as a powerful protest image.”

In the US, protestors recently dressed up as handmaids in opposition to president Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh.

But some believed selling the sexy Halloween costume showed poor taste, given the character comes from a dark dystopia.

Others took the opportunity to laugh about such a product existing.

And then even the character’s creator, Margaret Atwood, got involved.

Moral of the story: maybe don’t sexualise dystopian sex slaves.