Women Like Us by Edwidge Danticat is an epilogue in her book of short stories, titled Krik? Krak! Each of these short stories has the common theme of struggling within the lives of being a Haitian woman in the community and trying to fit in.

 

Reasons Behind it

Edwidge Danticat is a Haitian American author with strong feelings towards the relationships that women have and lives they are, at some point, forced to live. She was born in Haiti and moved to New York when she was 12 years old. Because she has experienced so much herself, from her immigration experience to injustice and the misuse of power in Haiti, she is a strong advocate for women in these situations in her stories.

Danticat graduated with a B.A. in French Literature and an M.F.A. in creative writing. In 1997, she was named one of the country’s best young authors by a literary journal titled Granta. 

 

What Does It Say?

Within each of the stories in Krik? Krak!, the characters are different and don’t ever seem to overlap with each other. That being said, Women Like Us tells the story of a young girl that seems to encompass the feelings of all of the women in the stories, and suggest that they are related in some way.

 

The young girl is told by her mother to follow two specific rules of living; always use your ten fingers (a reference to being a great cook and maid), and never have sex before marriage (even when you do once you’re married, never admit to enjoying it). Both of these things suggest that a women’s job is to provide for her husband in the kitchen and in the bedroom, whether it’s something that she wants to do or not. As the story progresses, the audience figures out that what the young girl really wants to do is write. She presents her first piece of work to her mother and gets shot down, telling her how disappointed she is and how unsuccessful writing would be for her since writers leave no importance in the world. Her mother tells her aunts that her passion was being quiet, as if that would be most effective for her to learn how to be the best cook and maid in the house. In the end, she has such a deep desire to write about all these stories she had in mind, about 999 other women, all with names she memorized, who had gone through hardships just like she had. Her desire is much deeper than any retribution she would face.

 

So What?

The story was quite difficult to understand the first time, with no background information on the author and no understanding of how this story functioned as an epilogue to the rest of the book. The second time around, after research, was a lot more meaningful to me as I felt like I had more of a personal look into the struggles that this girl, who represented all of these Haitian women, was dealing with. 

The first sentence of the story, and of multiple sections of the story, mentions that the young girl thought she looked like her mother, who looked like her grandmother, who looked like her great grandmother and so on. This emphasizes how each one of these women seems to be the same, or at least related in some way physically and mentally. In the bigger picture, each generation, each relative and ancestor went through this same life of oppression that taught them they belong in the house to cook and clean and please the husband. It even goes far enough to say that trying to become anything else, especially a writer, would get you nicknames such as “lying whore”, and you could get raped and killed.

The young girl in the story, in the end, felt a burning desire in her to write the stories of all these women she feels she connects with. Those who have died in vain, those who went their whole lives without having a voice. She felt that silence was worse than any punishment she would get for writing.

 

Using Techniques

For you girls reading this, each and every time I say “young girl”, I want you to read it back and instead insert yourself into that position, use the word “I”. Danticat doesn’t ever say “young girl” in this story, but says “you”, in reference to the person reading it.

You are this person being mistreated. You are this person whose decisions are made for her. You are this person who can’t choose the life she is living.

Danticat directly inserts you into this position to understand this feeling of oppression and social injustice within Haitian communities.

 

The Aftermath

I highly suggest you take the time to read this short but dense story. As women in our society today, it is one of our jobs to stand up for each other, to advocate for women’s empowerment. I have attached two articles that touch on where Haiti is and where they have come from in terms of women’s equality, and I think after reading this powerful short story, it would be worth your while to check them out.

 

Short Story:

https://agramo.weebly.com/uploads/4/6/1/1/46112413/danticat-epilogue:_women_like_us_.pdf

Danticat, Edwidge. Epilogue: Women Like Us. agramo.weebly.com/uploads/4/6/1/1/46112413/danticat-epilogue:_women_like_us_.pdf.

Articles:

http://www.huffpost.com/entry/a-history-of-haitian-wome_b_493305

Bell, Beverly. “A History of Haitian Women’s Involvement (International Women’s Day Part II).” HuffPost, HuffPost, 25 May 2011, www.huffpost.com/entry/a-history-of-haitian-wome_b_493305.

http://www.usaid.gov/haiti/gender-equity-and-womens-empowerment

Helmer, Kendra. “Gender Equity and Women’s Empowerment.” U.S. Agency for International Development, 25 Jan. 2018, www.usaid.gov/haiti/gender-equity-and-womens-empowerment.