Misogyny and Patriarchy

Because the story is told from the collective perspective of female Japanese immigrants, it is able to effectively explore the challenges of patriarchy and misogyny that these women face; the narration substantiates this exploration through both general and specific illustrations. The immigrants are shown to face extremely difficult circumstances after they arrive in California, and the women must face the added adversity of inequitable patriarchal social structures. As the narration states, the men “had nothing to do with [the children]. They never changed a single diaper. They never washed a dirty dish. They never touched a broom. In the evening, no matter how tired we were when we came in from the fields, they sat down and read the paper while we cooked dinner for the children and stayed up until late washing and mending piles of clothes” (733). These descriptions demonstrate how unjust forms...