Kacie Griffin

What role does gender play in your story? How are men and women treated differently?

     Gender plays a huge role in the novel, The Color Purple, for it dictates many of the characters lives. In the 1930's, women, especially African American, had restricted rights. This even occurred in domestic home with marriages. Celie was taken advantage of by her step Pa, married off to a man who does not love her, and beaten by both men. While all this happened to her she never spoke up because she simply thought that it was her place to sit back and take it. These times were discriminative towards women. Men felt they were superior to women and many aspects. To them, all women could do was take care of children and do housework. Almost every women we have met in the story has to deal with a man that thinks she is nothing but wife material. Women have just as much to offer as men, but were not given the opportunity to speak their minds and express themselves during the early twentieth century.
      Men and women were treated extremely different during this time, specifically in this novel also. When Shug, Squeak, and Celie decide they are leaving to move north without Harpo and Mr._____, the men cannot stand for it. Every man at the table thinks it is a joke until Celie lets them hear. She finally stopped holding back her opinion and said what she thought. This instance put them in their place only momentarily. A few moments later all the women start to laugh at the men, and Harpo then says, "Shut up Squeak, he say. It bad luck for women to laugh at men" (Walker 201). This statement stood out to me because he actually said it was bad luck to make fun a man if you are a woman. This just goes to show that men were treated with more respect because they were respected by other men but also by women. The same respect was not given to women, for men looked down at them in almost every aspect.