Diaz's Take on Women

While Diaz frequently contains stories about women, it is rare that these women fall outside of two categories: being involved in an abusive relationship, and having previously left one behind. This is a reflection of the culture he grew up in, and the expectations placed on men, but it is also what women expect from relationships.

In Drown, the primary examples are Yunior’s mother and Aurora. Both are involved in abusive relationships, although different kinds. Where Yunior’s mother often does nothing to stand up to her husband, Aurora fights back: “She tried to jam a pen in my thigh, but that was the night I beat her chest black-and-blue” (Drown 52). However, neither actively tries to get out of the situation. They believe that all men behave in this way. Similar to Yunior, these are the dynamics of every relationship they’ve seen, and they believe it is normal. Despite behaving differently, both women are complicit, displaying the cultural mindset about abuse and its perpetrators.

In Oscar Wao, each woman behaves differently in regards to abuse. La Inca will not beat her daughter; Beli does not acknowledge that the Gangster would ever hurt her even as it’s happening; Lola at one point ends up in a relationship in which she fears for her own safety. Abuse is a part of their lives even if they actively try to avoid it, and once it is there they do not try to stop it. La Inca is afraid and sends Beli away, but does not attempt to stop the Gangster. Beli moves on and lives in fear and despair in America. Lola, in the end, is the only one who seems to finally fight off the abuse in leaving Yunior for good, ending up with a man who presumably respects her. Even then, she cared deeply for Yunior and they remain friends even after he has hurt her, and she does not completely leave those who have hurt her in the past. These three women “embraced the amnesia that was so common throughout the Islands” and forget the abuse they’ve seen or experienced (Wao 359).

In This is How You Lose Her, the female characters all suffer through various forms of abuse, be they emotional or physical. When it comes to Yunior, they walk away and end up with someone else, but in the case of Rafa, all of his girlfriends are loyal to him even after he has hurt them, just as he remains loyal to Pura. Yasmin, the only female narrator, continues to see a man despite knowing that he has a wife and child back in the Dominican Republic. She knows better than to expect something more from him, just as she grew accustomed to stories of rape and abuse from other Dominican women. This behavior is normal and mostly left unaddressed throughout Diaz’s final novel, and the characters are accepting of it, even if they do not agree. This is what they have been raised to accept.