Sexism In The Help

Sexism is still commonly found all over the world. What was sexism like back in the

1960s and 1970s? The novel, The Help shows many different stories, relationships, and problems about sexism. The characters who experience sexism have different experiences and backgrounds. Sexism even crosses racial boundaries and affects both blacks and whites. In fact, the book shows two different kinds of sexism. One type of the sexism is a prejudice that influences the way women dress, work, speak, and act. The character in The Help struggle to respond in some way to the sexist ideal of the good housewife back in the 1960s, sometimes conforming to it and sometimes rebelling against it.

There are different types of Sexism that appeared in the The Help

The Help describes white women to have a typical image by appearance and role. Aibileen describes Skeeter as "She wearing a white lace blouse buttoned up like a nun, flat shoes so I reckon she don’t look any taller. Her blue skirt gaps open in the waist. Miss Skeeter always looks like somebody else told her what to wear." (Stockett 4). This image is not typical for the American woman. Skeeter is not like the women in her town, so she looks funny from her hair to her feet. Unlike women of her age who wear their hair in puffs and bobs, Skeeter isn 't concerned about her frizzy hair. She dresses in ordinary clothes while the other women are fashionable and dressed in modern pleated and matched blouses, skirts and shoes. When Skeeter is not wearing common clothes people also get shocked, "And there Miss Skeeter in a red dress and red shoes, setting on my front steps like a bullhorn," her dress is too brightly colored for others (118). Skeeter doesn 't draw attention to her body when she dresses. However, Celia dresses different from

Minny showed that her husband is violent, " 'Why? Why are you hitting me? ' .... I was trapped in the corner of the bedroom like a dog. He was beating me with his belt. It was the first time I’d ever really thought about it. Who knows what I could become," (485) and "I ain 't telling, I ain 't telling nobody about that pie. But I give her what she deserve! .... I ain 't never gone get no work again, Leroy gone kill me..." (24). Also, it shows that Minny is forced to work for her family to earn money in order to raise their family up. It 's different from Skeeter 's situation in that Skeeter is hoping to continue her career but Minny has no choice to change her situation. Minny is a strong character in the book and she even took revenge against Hilly after she spread rumors about Minny. However, Minny seems so weak, vulnerable and under the mercy of her husband Leroy. Even if Leroy abuses Minny, she endures it because she loves him. Sexism here is in the superiority of men over women that give them the right to abuse them. According to Skeeter, in early 1960s, Sexism appeared in jobs that were open only for men, "My eyes drift down to HELP WANTED: MALE. There are at least four columns filled with bank managers, accountants, loan officers, cotton collate operators. On this side of the page, Percy and Gray, LP, is offering Jr. Stenographers fifty cents more an hour," (68). Characters from