Gender Inequality In The Color Purple By Alice Walker

The novel of “The Color Purple by Alice Walker describes an illegible black girl named Celie grows up under poverty in the Deep South of United States, who, undergoes a major change in her life from a victim of gender discrimination and prejudice to a successful woman by the end of the story. According to the “The Color Purple”, Celie is the narrator of the novel and her story begins with her struggle to resist her free wills against male dominance world. Her youth and early adulthood describe herself under controlled by the stepfather and the husband. Most memories depict physically and emotionally abused among men surrounding her. Celie is completely passive about her life and her identity from the very beginning because of the mistreatment

Household chores and children rearing are an innate instinct of women tends to do the best in the nature within the family. As a result, the social norm assigns household tasks to women because this is what they are suitable to do at the finest. Mayor’s wife says to Sofia, “All your children so clean, she say, would you like to work for me, be my maid? “ (90). The gender norm shows that that it always would be the women to take care of the kids rather than men. They are expected to be a household maid and a caretaker. Celie says,“She reach down and grab a piece of stove wood and whack him cross the eyes” (39). Celie says, “Squeak slap her cross the head. Sofia ball up her fist, draw back, and knock two of Squeak’s side teef out” (87). This shows that some women are just as much violent as men do. Celie admires Sofia’s boldness to against her husband’s Harpo’s aggressive behavior to force her to become a submissive wife. Through interaction and conversation with Sofia, Celie begins to learn how to defend her against further abuse from her husband. For example, Sofia says to Celie, “But I will kill him dead before I let him beat me” (42). Sofia is physically strong with masculine body. As a woman herself, she will fight for what she wants. She is more capable than Harpo of sustaining hard physical labor. Sofia is planning to get herself pregnant in order to convince Albert to engage with her. Harpo beats Sofia for not being submissive because this is what how the family functions at the time. In fact, he is more feminine than masculine in many ways himself. He is a good cook, enjoys looking after and playing with the children and does not relish or perform manual labor very well. Harpo finds it very hard to control her wife because he is very feminism and weak. It is sanctioning the use of violence to