An Issue of Gender

For centuries women have struggled with gender oppression in cultures throughout the world. Over the centuries different writers have attempted to write about the issue in hopes of changing society in a positive direction. I have chosen to examine the works of three women authors, Jamaica Kincaid, who wrote “Girl,” Bessie Head, who wrote “The Collector of Treasures,” and Amrita Pritam, who wrote “Amrita Pritam”. In our textbook, “One World of Literature,” by Shirley Geok-Lin Lim and Norman A. Spencer, most of the literature written by women authors describes the less than equal status women held in their respective cultures. In this paper, I will show the struggles women had to endure because of their gender, and I will also explain how women overcame their struggles and came to grips with their role as a female in their respective societies. Just as women in the past had problems regarding their gender, the issues still exist today. Women need to have the opportunity to be included as equal partners with men in their respective societies.

Jamaica Kincaid, who grew up on the island of Antigua, wrote Girl, which describes “the flavor and texture of her childhood experience with female family members.” (Lim, Spencer, 763) This piece of literature focuses on what it is like to be a young girl in Antigua, as she learns the ways of survival and etiquette in her society. Instruction is given to help shape her female identity in a male-dominated culture, with most instruction being focused on how to get a man and how to keep a man. At the beginning of the piece, the mother is giving basic domestic instructions to a young girl, like “soak your little cloths right after you take them off” or “always eat your food in such a way that it won’t turn someone else’s stomach.” (Lim, Spencer, 763) Later on in the piece, the mother is giving more mature instructions like, “this is how to make a good medicine to throw away a child before it even becomes a child” or “this is how to love a man, and if this doesn’t work there are other ways, and if they don’t work don’t feel too bad about giving up.” (Lim, Spencer, 764) A phrase that is repeated several times throughout the piece is “keep yourself from…the slut…you are so bent on becoming.” (Lim, Spencer, 763-764) I think this phrase is the mother’s attempt at trying to warn the daughter throughout life to not become promiscuous or just a man’s sexual toy, but to become a woman of worth. This is why she is teaching her so many skills, so that she will always be productive, self-reliant and desirable for something other than just the sexual gratification she can give a man. I noticed also that chores were centered around serving the man in phrases like, “this is how you iron your father’s khaki shirt so that it doesn’t have a crease” or “this is how you iron your father’s khaki pants so that they don’t have a crease,” or “this is how to behave in the presence of men who don’t know you very well” (Lim, Spencer, 764). This is reminiscent of the author’s childhood when she lived in Antigua. She had many similar experiences with her own mother until she moved to the United States when she was 16 years old. I’m sure as she arrived in the United States; she noticed the more independent lifestyle women lived when compared to the male-dominated lifestyle women lived in Antigua. At first, one can think that the author is bitter towards her mother for all the nagging she did, but after reading “Girl” several times, it appears as though the piece is actually a tribute to all the things the author was taught as a girl by her mother. Antigua was not the only country where women were taught to be subservient to men. African women had their challenges with women’s rights issues as well.

In “The Collector of Treasures,” Bessie Head writes about Dikeledi, an African woman who has had a difficult life, but has always made the best of it. This is why she is called the “Collector of Treasures.” The people she meets that are kind to her and the love they show to her become the treasures she collects in her heart and stores them there for times when her life isn’t going so well. The author also covers the political struggle the people in the village were experiencing during that time. The themes in this story, parallel struggles the author herself experienced in her own life. She herself was a woman who had faced many challenges, being raised in foster care, living as a refugee for fifteen years, and raising a child alone.

Many African women have throughout history been subject to gender oppression in their male-dominant society. In Dikeledi’s case, she had been considered by her husband Garesego to be “an inferior form of human life” (Lim, Spencer, 30). When the economy improved after African decolonization, Garesego began to make R200.00 a month instead of the R50.00 he had made before independence. The extra money went to his head and he left his wife, Dikeledi, began sleeping around with all kinds of women, and never saw her again for eight years. The author seems to blame colonialism for the crazy way men like Garesego acted. She explains where Colonialism brought them:

“It was the man who arrived at this turning point, a broken wreck with no inner resources at all. It was as though he was hideous to himself and in an effort to flee his own inner emptiness; he spun away from himself in a dizzy kind of death dance of wild destruction and dissipation” (Lim, Spencer, 30).

This was the kind of “effect colonial rule had on traditional notions of family” (web, Bessie Head, 1). However, she also explained that there “was another kind of man in society with the power to create himself anew” and rise above the problems men had to deal with because of Colonialism (Lim, Spencer, 30). This kind of man would devote his whole life to his family. The story describes one man, Paul Thebolo, who was this kind of man. He was totally devoted to his family. Paul, his wife Kenalepe, and his children moved in next door to Dikeledi. They became very good friends and through them, Dikeledi was able to store up another treasure of love and friendship in her collection. She made clothes for their family, and in return, they supplied her with all the food she needed. Dikeledi was able to support her three sons and pay for their schooling, but when her eldest son needs tuition money for secondary school; Dikeledi’s funds are R20.00 shy to make the payment. As she seeks financial assistance from Garesego, he refuses, saying she should have Paul pay for the schooling since he is her lover anyway. She of course tries to explain that Paul is only her neighbor, but Garesego doesn’t believe her. She sees that Garesego is still the wicked man he always was before and that she will never get the money to pay for her son’s education. After a big struggle with Paul and spreading bad rumors around the village about Dikeledi and Paul, he sends a note to her one-day that he would like to move back in. She agrees, and one can tell she has some kind of plan.

This is a turning point in the story, for it shows what can happen to a woman when she is pushed too far. Early on in the story, it is pointed out that this occurrence happened not only with Dikeledi, but also with many other women in prison with her, who had also been pushed too far. One prison-mate stated, “Our men do not think that we need tenderness and care” (Lim, Spencer, 28). This is all that Dikeledi wanted. She wanted to be treated kindly and she wanted to be loved. Her husband, who had only thought of himself all along, had to suffer the final payback for his wrongs. So Dikeledi knew it was up to her and put an end to his life. She was not sorry for her crime, but she was sorry that she would never see her children, Paul, and Kenalepe again.

As she settles into her prison life, she makes a new friend named Kebonye. She helps Dikeledi to adjust to prison life and not have any bad things happen to her. Kebonye shows her kindness and love. Dikeledi deserves that much.

The author states so nicely,

“And yet she had always found gold amidst the ash, deep loves that had joined her heart to the hearts of others. She smiled tenderly at Kebonye because she knew already that she had found another such love. She was the collector of such treasures” (Lim, Spencer, 29).

Women seek such treasures, because all women want is to be loved, respected, and treated equally. Bessie Head used this story to help us all empathize with Dikeledi and desire that justice be served. She also helped us see that Colonialism brought about a way of life that needed to be changed in order for life to be fair. Colonialism also brought challenges to women in other countries as they dealt with gender oppression.

“Amrita Pritam” is a very short poem by Amrita Pritam that relays a powerful message about the woman experience in India. Traditionally, women in India have had very few rights and have always been subservient to their husbands. In the first three lines of the poem, “There was a pain, I inhaled it, Silently,” speaks of the burden Indian women had to bear in being the weaker gender with less rights and lower status in society than the men. In the past, Indian women have had limited choices in what they could do with their lives. Their main duties involved only domestic chores like bearing and taking care of children, cooking meals, taking care of other household duties, and pleasing their husbands. With this way of life, women could not be totally fulfilled, so they had to bear this pain silently as it says in the poem. The next lines are dedicated to the modernization of women in India. The cigarette is a symbol of the Indian women’s empowerment, since traditional Indian women were not allowed to smoke. The songs referred to in the poem are the sad songs of struggle for the traditional Indian women. The poem gives the feeling that these women have born at times burdens that were difficult, but yet through the modernization process they were able to shake of the old negative traditions and grasp the new.

In conclusion, we have seen that women authors from different parts of the world portray their view on the issue of women’s rights and women’s empowerment in much the same way. Women suffered at the hands of men and had to learn how to bring good changes for women in their respective societies. For Jamaica Kincaid in “Girl” the changes were for older women to prepare girls from a young age how to find her identity and become a woman of worth. For Bessie Head in “The Collector of Treasures,” the woman learns to collect good memories in her heart to carry her through difficult times. For Amrita Pritam in “Amrita Pritam,” she learns to leave some of the traditional values behind and embrace the new ways of life for women through education and politics. Each author has her very own way in her writings of dealing with the issue of women’s rights. In “The Collector of Treasures,” even another, yet not advised approach to the answer was to completely remove the troublesome man from the equation. There are still countries today that are facing the challenges of gender inequality. As these issues of women’s rights and women’s empowerment still exist, women of all countries will constantly be searching for ways to become recognized completely as women of worth offering worthy individual contributions to society.

Works Cited

Geok-Lin Lim, Shirley and Spencer, Norman. “One World of Literature” Houghton Mifflin. 1993

Huiza, Claudia. Bessie Head web article.

http://www.online.nu.edu/re/NATU/LIT342-98622/unit3/module1/bessie.html