How this NJ woman is using ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ and graduation gowns to troll Mike Pence

For at least a year now, their crimson robes and white bonnets have been springing up at anti-Trump protests in Washington, D.C., and inside statehouses around the nation.

On Friday, the Handmaids will appear in Essex County to taunt Vice President Mike Pence, but with an unusual source of costuming: The newly discarded graduation robes of Columbia High School students in Maplewood.

“I think it was like 75 bucks for this hot, acrylic, nasty gown they wear once and then they leave to sit in the closet until someone decides to get rid of them,” said Kathleen Kargoll, the South Orange resident organizing a “Handmaid’s Tale” protest and march planned for lunchtime this Friday in nearby Springfield.

(For the perplexed, “The Handmaid’s Tale” is an Emmy-winning TV series set in a post-America totalitarian theocracy called Gilead wherein the few remaining fertile women are forced to wear crimson cloaks and bear the children of their religious overlords.)

After Kargoll heard that Pence was coming to Springfield’s Baltusrol Golf Club to stump for the GOP’s congressional candidate in the 11th District, Assemblyman Jay Webber, R-Morris, she decided “there must be some kind of counter-statement” she could make.

“He’s the voice of everything that is the opposite of our values,” said Kargoll, noting that Maplewood recently painted a rainbow crosswalk in front of its town hall to celebrate LGBTQ pride.

As a congressman, Pence co-sponsored a proposed amendment to the Constitution that would define marriage as solely between one man and one woman, and voted against the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would have banned discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity by employers with at least 15 employees.

As vice president, Pence has been one of Trump’s most vocal defenders of the president’s new anti-gay policies in the U.S. military.

“That guy is coming to our backyard,” said Kargoll, “and it gave me this just kind of a spontaneous visceral reaction.”

Spying a red graduation robe still hanging in the closet of her son — who graduated from Columbia High School two years ago — she put out a call on Facebook’s SoMa Lounge asking to gather up other used graduation robes from fellow villagers so she could start making “Handmaid’s Tail” costumes.

By Wednesday evening, she’d created 20 finished Handmaid outfits and had more protesters interested than she had costumes.

“I don’t know how many people will be coming, but I will make as many as I possibly can,” Kargoll said. “I’m not bothering to put hoods on them like in the show.”

Kargoll said that she doesn’t “have anything specifically against Webber, except that he’s in the GOP, and right now, that’s enough for me, because they’ve bought into all this.”

Webber, for his part, declined to speak to NJ Advance Media, but did offer an emailed statement.

“As the father of four beautiful daughters, I’m committed to a better present and brighter future for all Americans, women and men,” wrote Webber, adding, “As a Congressman, I will work with people from both sides of the aisle who want to continue our country’s progress.”

Unlike the story’s main character Offred, who took the name of her new master Fred Waterford (“Of Fred”), she has no plans to rename herself OfMike.

“Not gonna do that,” Kargoll said. 

Her group of Handmaids plans to march the two and a half miles between Briant Park in Springfield, pass along Shumpike Road in front of the Baltusrol Golf Club where Pence will be campaigning, and Patriot Park on Wabeno Avenue.

The Webber event is private and closed to press, “but the sidewalk is still free,” Kargoll said.

Claude Brodesser-Akner may be reached at cbrodesser@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @ClaudeBrodesser. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.