Junot Diaz on Sexism

In ancient China as well, women were supposed to be subordinate to their father’s, husbands and in case they were widowed, their sons. The term itself, ‘sexism’, was adopted recently in the ‘50s and ‘60s during the second wave of feminism. The term came about due to the need to raise awareness of the existed of women oppression within the society, based on their gender (Sepulveda 20). Junot Diaz is a renowned writer, who has won many awards for his literature one of which is the Pulitzer Award for his novel “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” (Andres). Over the years he has written many books and some of them have faced scrutiny particularly from women who consider them to be sexist.

There is one particular instance when he is observing his brother’s girlfriend Nilda and he describes her as bosom as a chest while telling the reader that she has a great bosom (Diaz, “This is how”). The issue is that Yunior is first of all very inappropriate in the way he refers to Nilda’s bosom as ‘chest’. He assumes that everyone is thrilled with the way he talks about a woman’s bosom the same way he does. Also, from the stories it is apparent that he rarely thinks about the emotions of the women he dates. He never cares to ask them about their desires, their complications, why they get into or end relationships with him (Fassler). He believes that men in the society are privileged and this is partly what motivated him to write “This is How You Lose Her”.

Diaz also talks about men who consider themselves to be good and due to that mere fact, they are not sexist (Fassler). However, according to him the fact that one is good does not change the fact that they are not sexist. According to him they have to take an extra step and work actively to fight against the issue, and not just sit around and consider themselves good people. These are not sentiments of someone who is sexist. By portraying it this way, Diaz shows that the sexist nature of someone comes at a price and this way shows that it is a vile act. In fact, there is a law student who used him to take care of her while she was pregnant while in truth the pregnancy was not his.

This may be a direct consequence of his previous actions where he used women. This time he was the victim. This way, the writer shows the consequences of his sexist nature. This is what Diaz does through his character Yunior. Diaz shows in his literature that this bias was implicit since Yunior never knew what was happening. Without acknowledging the existence of something, particularly biases that are unconscious, like sexism is, nothing can be done (Yarwoski). The short story in the collection that makes Diaz’s stance on the issue of sexism very clear is the one and only story which was not written from Yunior’s point of view. The story is titled Otravida, Otravez. She also shows what Yunior cannot and that is deep empathy for the poor woman whom her husband left.

This is an indicator that Yunior was simply being used to display sexism and supports the argument that Diaz as a writer is not sexist at all. It makes more sense to consider Junot as brave rather than as a machismo filled writer who without regret objectifies women in his writing. For someone to be the great writer he is they have to be brave and take risks. Junot himself said that he knew that many people might take offense of his portrayal of Yunior as a sexist male chauvinist. A writer should speak the truth about the world and themselves as both people and writers. One needs to abandon the comfortable lies of everyday and embrace the painful truth. Ultimately everyone appreciates someone who is honest rather than one who protects them with lies.

As a result, it would be wrong to say he was simply being sexist in his literature. His intention was to simply challenge the reader with the truth which is the fact that sexism very much exists. Hence, they should change their ways so as to enjoy life more. However, majority of story focused on Yunior’s infidelities and break ups and as a result the main focus was mostly on exposing his sexism, and the sexism in our current society as well, and to demonstrate the consequence of such actions. Sexism never ends well for anyone. As a man, one cannot connect with the female gender, in an intimate fashion when they are constantly sexist. Women want to be respected, and not simply objectified the way Yunior did to his female companions (Wecks).

However, some readers were in such a rush to dump the book that they failed to realize the truth of the matter. In fact, come have gone on to critique his writing without even opening a single page in his book. This kind of attitude just shows how much ignorance people have. It is apparent to an open-minded person that Diaz bravely tried to expose the issue by presenting it as it is through the character Yunior. He made no attempt to hide anything from the reader but presented Yunior as brutish as he was. This way, Diaz shows us that actions like sexism never end well for somebody. As a result, he is clearly not sexist. Works cited Andres, Kaitlin.