These aspects are relevant and interesting as firstly, it is about how patriarchal mistreatment delivers the goods by stigmatizing and separation of the hero, and also, how the patriarchal mistreatments are displayed by means of the white man's standard. Also a postcolonial feminist perspective of the novel will throw some light upon how and to what extent Celie is 'doubly oppressed'4, and will help in a better understanding of the gender relations and gender oppressions present in it.
Body.
In the black patriarchal society, the role of women was not limited to their households for most black women would have to work and earn a livelihood to feed and clothe their families. A black woman would have no protector; she would be exploited on many levels. From being sexually molested by the white colonizer to serving as a maid in a white man's family, nurturing their kids while her own kids were starving and were being neglected, a black woman would be constantly socially manipulated and physically ravished. It is true, that the black men were brutalized, torture was inflicted upon them, but the black women were worse-off than black men; they were victims of double oppression. They were not only subjected to racism and colonial subordination but were also subjected to misogyny by the male members of the society who looked down upon them and would exploit them to fulfil their sexual desires and would also use them as means of earning income due to their own incompetency.
This misogyny and exploitation of women gave birth to the Feminist Movement in the late 19th century. The movement demanded reforms on issues such as women suffrage, voting rights, equal wages, and domestic violence. During the Feminist Movement, a need for the term "Womanism" arose, as the movement, which was mainly led by the upper and the middle-class white women promoting social change in the form of women's suffrage focused mainly on the cessation of the gender based oppression, paid little or no heed to race and class- based oppression.
