When Milkman was twenty-two, he experienced many things with women. He started having sexual intercourse with different women at the age of sixteen. Because of his sexual experiences with different women, he started to consider women as less which made him see his own mother a different way. He no longer saw her as a person of authority, he saw her as something small and fragile. Basically as if he, being a man, was greater than her, being a woman.
The fact that Milkman changed the way he saw his mother because of his actions communicates Morrison’s portrayal of women. Since Milkman never had anything serious with these women, he never took them seriously. All these women would provide was sexual pleasure; therefore they were viewed as something with little to no importance. Milkman didn’t become less than what he was because he’s a man, but it’s not the same for women. Women have always been seen as inferior and the fact that men only see them as a way for pleasure, they’re seen as inferior. Milkman once respected his mother, and he saw her as much more, but then he fell into the way it “should be”. Women are weak; women aren’t capable of much. There’s no such thing as a strong independent woman. At least that’s what it was thought to be. That’s the way it’s portrayed in this story and in real
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She was capable of taking care of a child but now, she’s a fragile woman that is only capable of growing and cultivating small life that would not hurt her if it