Victoria 1

Gustavo Victoria

English 28

Holly Batty

May 30, 2018

Culture’s Role in Women’s Empowerment

Culture has a unique way of being defined; one definition calls culture the manifestation

of the achievements of human intellectually. To an extent, culture not only applies to the actions

that men and women do but also to their attitudes, experiences, and ways of living. In How the

Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez there is a theme of empowerment that arises

from culture. Empowerment, in its simplest terms, means having autonomy to do things, make

decisions, and carry those decisions out. Culture can be seen to serve as a guideline for

empowerment in which it can be either maintained or surpassed.

According to Naila Kabeer, the empowerment of women can be divided into three

different categories. Women can either find a way to assimilate into these categories or stray

from them. One of the categories described in Kabeer’s article, “Resources, Agency,

Achievements: Reflections on the Measurement of Women's Empowerment”, is the use of

resources. Women that lack resources are denied a certain level of empowerment because they

cannot afford it. An example of this would be the argument that women in a lower socio-

economic status often stay in this condition. Resources can be a way of holding back women

from achieving goals or even obtaining daily means. In the case of agency, women are looking

for ways to define their own goals. Oftentimes, as described by Kabeer, women do not achieve

the goals that they sought to accomplish. This can be seen through the absence of the character

‘Mami’ voicing her own opinions or mentioning goals of her own. Some may say that women
 Victoria 2

postpone the progression of their goals due to early pregnancy. Also, women see domestic

violence as purpose to stand up and fight for improvements. Culture in this case can be seen as a

hold back for women due to them constantly having to fight the injustices that they face.

For achievements the author states that the women desire the right to vote and celebrate

when they attain this commodity. It was not until the year 1920 that women were able to receive

a voting right, the process took almost 60 years. “Our conceptualization of empowerment has

also highlighted the interdependence of individual and structural change in process of

empowerment.”(Kabeer, p.461,2002) This quote describes a structure in which culture is

something women can overcome. Women are constantly trying to break the barriers set for them

in order to succeed in empowering others and themselves. The women may feel that the norms

culture imposes on them can be hindering from achieving new goals, improvements, and better

conditions overall. Women then use this sentiment as fuel to fight against culture and empower

women to fight for changes in which women can be capable of everything.

Jenny Rodriguez, the author for “The Construction of Gender Identities in Public Sector

Organizations in Latin America: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion,” argues that although there

are many barriers for women; they have a voice and can still be heard. The attitudes women

seem to vary in order to reflect the attitudes of the men.” In some cases women’s behavior is

identified as an attempt to renounce to a feminine nature and appropriate that of a man’s; in other

cases some women are identified as inappropriate for not being masculine enough.” (Rodriguez,

p. 61, 2010) Often society generalizes that when women stand up and act bossy they're

considered being rude, but when a man does it they’re just being a strong man or boss. Women

often try to obtain their own form of machismo; the definition is being strong or aggressive with

masculine pride. Women show this by standing up to the men who think women shouldn’t be
 Victoria 3

working or have their own opinion. This can also be seen in the way that women seek

professions in fields dominated by men such as science, politics, and others.

In the How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents the author Julia Alvarez illustrates

different aspect of Dominican culture. One of the things that are visible is sexuality and how it

differs from the Dominican Republic to the United States of America. Sofia disobeys her papa

from being sexually active in Dominican she has letters hidden in her drawer from her soon to be

lover, when papa finds he disowns her and she runs away to her boyfriend to live in Germany.

Compared to how Carla sees sexuality because of what happened to her in New York when she

got flashed by a man in a car from school on her way home. She sees it as embarrassing and

somewhat of scary topic. Most opinions of women and their sexuality seem to have a negative

connotation; this can be seen in the pressures of women gaining value through marriage. In the

book How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, one of the girls gets married twice and during the

toast a snarky comment is made illustrating the negativity of a second marriage.

The other culture reference is how the dad thinks men can only be superior and have

good jobs. When Sofia has a second baby, which is a boy papa is ecstatic; this shows his

preference for a male than for a female. He talked to the baby and said “ You can be president,

you were born here, the grandfather crooned. You can go to the moon, maybe even to Mars by

the time you are of my age.”(Alvarez, p. 27, 1992) That got Sofia mad because he was saying all

these things to the boy but not to his granddaughter. That shows papa believes that men can be

victorious in anything and women should be stay at home wives or have domestic professions.

Because the papa feels this way, it does not mean that the girls in the book do not seek freedom

from cultural barriers.

 Victoria 4

To conclude, culture can be a way of expression found beyond the actions of normal

human life. Art, music, literature, and more can all be indicators of culture in a certain area. The

attitudes of the people in that area also define their culture. Women and men contain different

means of expressing their interpretations of culture. In most ways, men have the freedom of full

expression and tend to exert their masculinity and strength in every aspect. Women, on the other

hand, find themselves constricted by the norms, values, and characteristics that culture expects

them to have. Empowerment is rooted from injustice in the form of combating it and seeking for

change. In the novel How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents by Julia Alvarez, there is a clear

view of the men in the story having the power to make all decisions. The women in the story try

to find their own voice but tend to not succeed. One of the sisters, Yolanda, even attends school

in the hopes of attaining a higher education. Culture serves as a barrier to overcome in order to

become empowered.
 Victoria 5

Works Cited

Alvarez, Julia. How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents. First paperback edition, Plume, June

1992. New York, New York

Kabeer, Naila. “Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment: A Critical Analysis of the Third

Millennium Development Goal.” Gender and Development, vol. 13, no. 1, 2005, pp. 13–

24. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20053132.

Rodriguez, Jenny K. "The Construction of Gender Identities in Public Sector Organisations in

Latin America." Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. 29, no. 1,

2010, pp. 53-77. ProQuest, http://libproxy.csun.edu/login?url=https://search-proquest-

com.libproxy.csun.edu/docview/613767628?accountid=7285,

doi:http://dx.doi.org.libproxy.csun.edu/10.1108/02610151011019219.