At the beginning of Ousmane Sembene's novel, God’s Bits of Wood, the role of women is no different than in most
countries at the time, and as a matter of fact still today in a number of
countries. They were expected to fulfill the needs of their husbands, take care
of all domestic affairs and bring up their daughters so that when they grow up
they can do the same. After the strike broke, something unexpected in the role
of women in Thies. Since men stopped working as a strike method to show their
disapproval of the current methods, they stopped producing money to provide
food for their families. Given this new situation, the women of Thies felt the
need to take care of this and little by little became the new provider of the house.
I believe this is very interesting because women before were seen as
almost useless, yet now the family up to a point depends on their ability to
feed them.
In some parts of the novel, women are still seen as useless. The scene where Houdia uses the last couscous to make her husband and his friends happy, expecting only a few words of thanks in return, he obviously enjoys the meal but tells her "something is missing from the couscous." Although roles are changing, attitudes are not
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you. I also did some research on women's rights in Senegal and although it is obvious that their role in society increased in comparison with their role before the strike, as we can see in the book and through some other reading, the attitude of men towards women keep to me unjust. They do not appreciate their work. They expect them to get things done but once they accomplish things not even they were capable of achieving, they just look for something else to criticize.
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