Things Fall Apart Gender Roles

Things Fall Apart is a novel set around the year 1900 describing a tribal group in Western Africa called the Ibo. The Ibo were a very successful group whose culture was built around agriculture. They lived in villages and clans and every man grew crops such as yam to successfully sustain themselves and their families. They had a complex social structure where hardworking men and elders were on the top and untitled or lazy men and women were on the bottom. They also had a superstitious polytheistic religion with many gods and ancestral spirits. The Ibo were a very prosperous people with a society that had very distinct gender roles. In the Ibo society, distinct gender roles played a big part in their culture because men were superior to women, women were considered insignificant, and men and women had different responsibilities and tasks. The Ibo were very strict about gender and the differences between men and women’s duties and expected behaviors.
For example, Okonkwo, the main character in Things Fall Apart, was a successful and important Ibo clan member who said, “‘If Ezinma had been a boy, I would have been happier,’” (Achebe 66). Ezinma was Okonkwo’s favorite child and daughter. Okonkwo cared about her a lot and wanted her to live a happy life. The fact that he wanted her to be a boy suggests that Ezinma would have lived better as a boy. Men had more opportunities than women. It was more advantageous to be a man because women can’t get very far in the Ibo culture. Additionally, Okonkwo says that Nwoye, his oldest son, would not be a good man “...if he was unable to rule his women…” (Achebe 63). Obviously, men and women were not considered equal. Men were supposed to have power over their women. A man was seen as weak if he did not have authority or dominance over his women. Ultimately, men were more critical and essential than women to the Ibo