Gender Inequality In The Joy Luck Club

Cultural differences are prevalent in both of Amy Tan’s novels, The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife. The mother’s face gender inequality based upon living in a patriarchal society in China, where they are oppressed with silence by their dominating husbands. Nevertheless, their daughters live in American, where they have an opportunity of freedom, have not faced constrainment in their lifestyles as their mother’s have. The independent girls have their own authority and mindset, being raised in western societies. Therefore, it is quite difficult for the mother’s and daughter’s to have a sense mutual understanding.

It is revealed that social divisions between males and females in China continue from early childhood and last until late

That was how backward families in the country were (44).” She feels that her family would be the last people to “give up stupid old-fashioned customs (45).” It is okay for a man to “choose his own wife, with his parents’ permission of course.” However, it was wrong for a woman to even to do so and the families wanted the females “to cut off from this type of new thought (45).”
In The Kitchen God’s Wife, when Winnie Louie is ready to get married, her father asks “‘How big a dowry does the Wen family expect? (142)”’ so she will not be considered too much of a burden for her new family. He interrogates what her in-laws may want besides money, such as furnishings. Dowry will serve as a way to keep Winnie’s in-laws from constantly taunting her about being a freeloader, as they will be providing her with food and shelter. Although Winnie will help out with chores around the home for the remainder of her life after marriage, it will not even be considered that she is of any use, because her husband is the one going outside to work. A woman is seen as nothing but a dependent, which brings forth no benefits and whose responsibility lies in a male’s hands. Furthermore, she learns