Things Fall Apart Gender Roles

First, gender roles in a society have a huge cause and effect that affects the people in the society, in the novel things fall apart these roles greatly affect family life. An example of this is how Okonkwo, the main protagonist in things fall apart, leads his family. Okonkwo is very strict and expects his wives and children to obey his every command, this caused his young wives and children to be scared of him. “Okonkwo ruled his household with a heavy hand. His wives, especially the youngest, lived in perpetual fear of his fiery temper, and so did his little children”(13). The way the gender roles in his society were set up was the women had to always obey the men. This causes Okonkwo to be strict so he can manage his household. But the effect

Within the igbo people, the women are affected more heavily than the men. An example of this is dominant role that the women have in the village. “The dominant role for women is: first, to make a pure bride for an honorable man, second, to be a submissive wife, and third, to bear many children”. - http://www.shmoop.com/things-fall-apart/gender-theme.html. The main reason why the women are there are just to become a good wife and have many children. The cause of this is because people wanted many children so they could help with work. The effect of this was this became the dominate role for women and all the women did was have babies, take care of children, and certain task they were assigned for example cooking or gathering water. Another piece of evidence to support this is how even though the men had more priority over women some women had accepted this lesser role over time. “Although there were clear disadvantages to women, paradoxically, many of them enjoyed being provided for and complied to the female gender roles that had be reinforced within the group for years. As these expectations had been accepted as traditional, gender roles and stereotypes were internalized to the point where the men and women rarely butted heads over what had become social norms”. - http://ibthingsfallapart.weebly.com/children-and-gender-roles.html. Since the women in the igbo tribe had such a dominate role in society this caused the women to get used to this and accept their role even though the were portrayed as lesser. The effect of this is that the women never challenged this role because they were used to it and then it soon grew on to them and became