Women deal with more than just dominance from males. Women also have a history of suffering beneath stifling gender roles. In the novel a good wife is described as a woman who is good with housekeeping, cooking, and children. Men held the place as breadwinners and the head of the household and of course women and chidren should always obey the men. The novel focuses on this apsect in much greater detail than in the movie. Here the Harpo likes keeping the house nice while his wife, Sophia likes to work in the fields. As the novel progresses these roles become more accepted until Harpo and Sophia essentially switch roles. Both the movie and novel show Celie in her own business making pants at the end. American society is definitely not at the equality level as Harpo and Sophia's home. While are allowed to do more "masculine" work, there are still many destinct "boy" jobs and "girl" jobs. Instead of liberating women, the new freedoms tend to just double their work load. Whereas women are looked upon as being strong when doing men's roles, men are looked upon as being weak if they do any women's roles. This is just creating more rifts in the roles of society and both men and women need to be aware of this so that the problem can be rectified.
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