Gender Roles

Through the experiences of Wurche and Aminah, the author demonstrates how, across class lines, women were constricted by predetermined gender roles. In both cases, she also testifies to women’s resilience and their determination to triumph over these restrictions.

The reader is first introduced to Aminah as a young girl from a humble background daydreaming about a life as a shoemaker like her beloved father, Baba. The notion of “travelling on a camel or horse with a sack full of shoes” appeals to her more than the life set out for her as a wife to one of the local men in Botu (4). Her father’s second wife Issa-Na stands as a symbol of the life she does not want. Aminah looks at Issa-Na with pity, thinking: “There was a woman in second place and bitter about it” (4). Therefore, as other women in her village...