Gender Roles In Okonkwo

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First and foremost, Achebe uses gender roles to show social norms in order to highlight that there is no crossover in expectations or duties. Women depict a lifestyle that is common throughout the african culture. They exemplify an important female role for the children and the household. One of the wives many purposes for the males is to bear lots of children. Okonkwo remarked, “You might as well say that the woman lies on top of the man when they are making the babies” (Achebe 74). Women are used for the birth of children so the men can obtain as many sons as possible. The women are given no option but to get pregnant in order to further the clans success with male superiority. Also, women are given the role as the nurturer. Uchendu states, …show more content…

Women are expected to be submissive towards their husbands. They play no role in decision making. Achebe wrote, “Without looking at the man Okonkwo had said. “This meeting is for men.” The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That was why he had called him a woman. Okonkwo knew how to kill a man’s spirit” (Achebe 26). Okonkwo claims that any man who has no title is a women. This reference depicts the way women are portrayed through the men’s eyes and useless and opinionless. This unfair advantage gives women no rights to their thoughts and feelings. Also, men have this image they must live up to. They must be strong and brave. Okonkwo claimed, “Whenever the thought of his father’s weakness and failure troubled him he expelled it by thinking about his own strength and success. And so he did now. His mind went to his latest show of manliness” (Achebe 120). The men of the Ibo society are pictured to be courageous and if not they are considered unfavorable. The men have high expectations and Okonkwo lived with the fear of not being prosperous. Today, men fill the strong, protector role and if they do not they are sometimes viewed as undesirable. This role has been passed down through the story and in present day

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