In Africa, as I will discuss, capitalism has used but also modified patriarchal institutions, just as patriarchy has sought to preserve or extend those institutions under the political, economic, and cultural changes introduced by capitalism. (April A.Gordon, 57). I have tried to accommodate in my analysis that feminists do need to avoid the often ethnocentric assumption that all women’s experiences of patriarchy-or capitalism- are the same, or that all women experience oppression in the same way. (April A.Gordon, 26) As Duniya and the other female characters in the book present. Race, class, ethnicity, and subjection to imperialism are other forms of oppression that the protagonist of this novel often experiences. In order to understand this …show more content…
Here we find a pattern of the patriarchal-capitalist society in which women are given less job opportunities and lower wages: “About uniforms- I don’t want you to misunderstand me. I am quite aware of the class nature as well as the gender politics of hospitals in which uniforms assume a hierarchical significance, in particular, hospitals where all the doctors are male and all the nurses, female. You weren’t making a point out of this, were you?” (18) In the following lines, Duniya’s thought narrative is revealed as a visible discomfort with the lack of empathy of the doctor towards a woman that has been re-infibulated by her husband and whom he addresses disrespectfully as if the woman in the consults was nobody and cannot take responsible decisions about herself, in conclusion, as if she was not her own …show more content…
As Jaggar (1983:77-78) writes, “all women are subject to rape, to physical abuse from men in the home, and to sexual objectification and sexual harassment.” Despite the existence of patriarchy as a system of oppression, women may sometimes actually feel greater solidarity with their menfolk than with other women. (April A. Gordon, 1996:77). By reading Gifts, the reader witnesses how the main character, Duniya, submissive to the decision of his father about the arranged marriage with a friend of him, accepts the commitment and gets married really young with a 60-year-old man. The man, Zubair, had known her for ever. When she was 4, she was passing by his house and fell in love with Zubair’s horse: “I offered you this handsome horse, Duniya, and it seems you’ve accepted him. But what have you given me in return, my little one? Zubair said. (35). - “I will marry you,” she said.