When it comes to delegating responsibility, allocating power, and demanding equality, there always seems to be an underlying bias towards the masculine sector of society, which allows an imbalance regarding gender equality. Understanding where this way of thinking comes from is an essential part of trying to shift and completely erase the bias. Throughout history, a patriarchal pattern and way of thinking has been passed down from generation to generation; what we fail to see is the reason for this pattern and the ways in which we can remedy the situation. A great example of this issue is displayed in the novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz. The female characters of Junot Diaz’s novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar
“Beli could no longer abide working at the bakery or being the “daughter” of one of the “most upstanding women in Bani.” She could not abide, period... what she wanted, more than anything, was what she’d always wanted throughout her Lost Childhood: to escape.” (Díaz 80) She was able to detach herself and learn that there is more to life than what she was told. It is thanks to females like her that we are becoming aware of how far down colonialism has push females. That the “worship of women as objects of chivalric adoration” (Kaplan 107) should not be, society makes females feel “invited to imagine themselves participating in the adventures of empire as a means of rejoicing traditional roles.” (Kaplan 110) This is what the support of imperial conquest has created. Hypatia Belicia Cabral, a lost dominican single mother in the U.S trying to escape from the culture that expects her to fulfill a given role. Colonialism allowed the lessening of a person just because of an aspect of their look or status. Just as Aime Cesaire states, “..while colonialism in its formal sense might have been dismantled, the colonial state has not. Many of the problems of democracy are products of the old colonial state whose primary difference is the presence of black faces.” (Cesaire 27) This being a clear example of Oscar, who even in a new country with endless possibilities to succeed still drags on with him that curse