Corregidora

Many of the incidents and issues that take place in this book stem from the confines created by gender roles and the patriarchy. While slavery in America is certainly rooted in racism, this novel also draws attention to the ways that sexism played a role as well. Great Gram and Grandmama’s experiences being raped by Corregidora and prostituted out to his friends and wife show the ways in which the demands on women slaves could be quite different from that of their male counterparts. On her guard after her own mother’s experiences, Ursa’s mother is no stranger to sexism, either. Her trust is broken when an otherwise friendly waiter convinces her to come upstairs with him and then takes advantage of her. She is impregnated and despite the fact that she hates him, she is forced to marry him for no other reason than traditional gender roles dictate that a mother should be married. 

Ursa, as the novel’s protagonist, is the greatest example of sexism’s shaping forces. Neighbors, classmates, audience members, nightclub owners–the list of Ursa’s predators is long. Like her mother, who becomes reclusive in order to fend off unwanted advances, Ursa numbs herself to the world around her in order to experience it. When her body loses its capacity for sexual arousal, this appears to be the ultimate manifestation of her defense against the masculine. However, even when she is robbed of all possibility of pleasure, men continue to volley for her body’s ability to provide them with pleasure. For her ancestors, as well as for Ursa, sexuality was a cage more permanent than any of the other confines they were forced into. 

Ursa’s struggle with gender roles is internal as well. She doesn’t feel like a woman once she is infertile, which leads to a deep feeling of inadequacy that is only further highlighted when her mother reveals that it was hard to tell which gender she was when she was first born. Ursa feels incapable of finding a good man because she doesn’t feel like she meets the requirements for being a woman, and for decades basically gives up.

The men in this novel also find themselves trapped in their masculine roles. Mutt’s violent actions toward Ursa all stem back to his pride and his ability to appear manly. Mutt tries to force himself on her in public, reminding readers that he is more invested in what others think of him, and less in what Ursa thinks of him. He feels betrayed when she doesn’t take his name or stop working, proving that he only feels comfortable when she is subordinate to him. Tadpole, if less violent, is equally insistent on the fulfillment of gender roles. He feels emasculated when Ursa can’t respond to him sexually and quickly replaces her with someone he feels can make him feel like a man.