Even though we are living in the 21st century and society progresses with each day going forward, Women are still fighting for their rights. This is an ongoing battle which never seems to end. Indeed, women have many rights compared to the past but they are still out casted and discriminated on the basis on their gender. For example, we had our first lady; Hilary Clinton run for president. However, she lost to an obnoxious man, Donald Trump. Why did she lose to him? In my opinion, it is because she is a woman. Majority white non-college men voted for Trump. Many of her own democratic party’s men might have voted against her just because she is a woman, and women in power and a woman for president can be the biggest nightmare to the sexist men out there. We will never know the odds. In this time of the world, we are still having a problem seeing women as same as men. There is always a gender conflict occurring. When women fight for what they believe, they are often judged or over looked. The gender gap is highly influenced by the idea or the possession of power. Some people think that the word power is associated with masculinity and women should be the one with no power and be submissive to the men who have power over them. This is illustrated in Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, published around 1966, in which the women in the book suffer from patriarchy, subjugation, and misogyny. Reading throughout the book, we find out that Hosna murders Wad and she kill herself. The narrator finds out what happened through Bint Mahzoub. Later, he tells Mahjoub what he heard. Through the description of Hosna’s lifeless body , it is an indication she was raped therefore she killed Wad.
Then, on page 109, Mahjoub says, “the thing she did wasn’t the act of a human being-it was the act of a devil”. For him to say, her killing was an act of devil, what about Wad Rayes?. How come he was not at fault? He raped her so why wasn’t his misdeed mentioned in the book. Also as we continue reading the book to page 110, he also says, “if it weren’t for the sake of decency she wouldn’t have been worth burying-we’d have thrown her into the river or left her body out for the hawks”. It was coming out from a pious man that would refer a woman killing a guy after he raped her as a devils act but when he talks about throwing a dead body into the river, it is indeed not a devils act…
In addition, we finally get a sense of Mustafa Saeed’s love affair in depth. As the narrator goes into Mustafa’s secret room, he finds a portrait of Jean Morris and pictures of other women in his life and letters about them. He finds out each affair in details. Nevertheless, one relationship was exciting to me. That was Jean Morris. This woman was not like the other three Mustafa was with, she was an unfaithful and a hard to get woman and that is what attracted Mustafa. He tried so many times to sleep with her but couldn’t. They ended up getting married. Even after she humiliated him and degraded him, he was after her. Then one day he just murdered her. It was an act of a weak man, a man who was so obsessed with manipulating women who came across him but could not stand the fact one woman did not fall for his trick. This horrific act shows what kind of Mustafa was which a sick delusional man was.
Both Wad Rayes and Mustafa are much like alike. Both were womanizers and treated women as sex objects. The only difference is that Wad Rayes raped Hosna, and later she killed him. And Mustafa tried to sleep with Jean; however, he killed her. I believe these two men were misogynistic. The fact that they felt powerless and a threat to women, it just shows the less of a man they were in this book. Characters, Hosna, and Jean were important to me. They both symbolize the strength of women. Hosna took ownership of what the society was forcing her to do. After she was forced to marry Wad she took a stance and was able to exert her power. Her killing Wad and herself was an explicit way for her to achieve justice. Jean, was the woman who did not let a guy rule her. She knew what type of a man Mustafa was and therefore she did not let him manipulate her.