Mark Field: the Handmaid’s Tale becomes reality

On Thursday night in London, dozens of brave Greenpeace climate change activists infiltrated a posh dinner for toffs in order to draw attention to evil weather. Instead of listening to their howls of distress at the destruction of the planet, the political elite chose to carry on with their meal which I have no doubt included a plate of ‘Clubbed Baby Seal avec Strangled Fox Cub Tears’.

In order to try and implore the right wing upper-class snobs to pay attention, one particularly courageous protester marched towards the front of the room, at which point the entire scenario went full Handmaid’s Tale as one of the male Members of Parliament grabbed the woman in a headlock and holding onto one of her wrists, forced her to punch herself in her own face while repeating the words ‘Stop hitting yourself!’ several times before flinging her against a wall. As she struggled to regain her footing, he stood over her… his manly balls swinging to-and-fro above her head as he cruelly taunted her with sarcastic remarks, very much like Alan Rickman’s character in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. He then grabbed her by the legs and swung her around in a macabre reproduction of an Olympic hammer-throw contestant and then he let go. As her limp body sailed across the room, he was heard to shout ‘Hasta la vista, Greenpeace’ before doing the Floss Dance, a victory move made popular by the game ‘Fortnite’ played by misogynistic basement-dwellers across the globe. He then winked at the security camera before lighting up a cigar and walking nonchalantly back to his seat as his fellow Conservatives applauded and whooped his violence.*

*(n.b. I’ve not actually seen the footage, but I have a good idea of what happened from reading the reports in several reputable news sources).

The MP in question, Mark Field, has since made the following statement: ‘There was no security present and I was, for a split second, genuinely worried she might have been armed. As a result I grasped the intruder firmly in order to remove her from the room as swiftly as possible.’

He added: ‘I deeply regret this episode and unreservedly apologize to the lady concerned for grabbing her but in the current climate I felt the need to act decisively to close down the threat to the safety of those present.’

Utter bullshit. Even if she had a concealed weapon and had intended to cause harm, there were other ways in which Field could have dealt with her. He could have whipped out his phone and shown her an article from everydayfeminism.com such as ‘5 Reasons Why Natural Disasters Screw Over People of Color’, or ‘These 3 Powerful Stories Show Why Wearing Camouflage Can Be Anti-Feminist’ which would have attracted her attention just enough so that he could have assessed whether or not she was a threat. Then once he realized she only had the purest of intentions, he could have politely apologized for delaying her before ushering her to the podium and insisting that the entire room listen to what she had to say.

It is depressingly predictable that the army of right wingers on social media is defending him. Their laughable takes include insisting he used reasonable force, and that he acted on instinct brought about by a currently hostile political environment. No doubt if the protester had been a man, none of this would have even happened. A male protester would have been allowed to walk straight up to the podium and outline his demands with no interference whatsoever. By defending this abhorrent act of misogynist violence, they are very clearly saying that women deserve it. They are literally saying that if a woman trespasses on a private event with the intention of disrupting it (passing through several layers of security in order to do so), it is perfectly acceptable (in their eyes) to use force to remove her.

What kind of a world are we living in?