Blog 6: Dirty Girls Social Club: Rebecca

I think that there are many ways that Rebecca is privileged as well as oppressed. She may own her own magazine, which is a privilege, but she has to keep her image sparkling so that people overlook her race. She has a husband, which could be seen as both a privilege and an oppression because he may be white, but his family doesn’t approve of her simply because of her race. Her race is mostly what she sees as her oppressions, and yet she has found a way to work around those obstacles in her life. Mostly. She is seen by most people as a friendly and nice person though she hides a bitterness of problems under the surface. She feels like she can’t date the man she’s attracted to because her mother said she would, “break her heart,” if she ever dated a black man (Valdes-Rodriguez 59). So even though Andre is a well-bred man, because of his color Rebecca’s mother won’t support her. Her mother doesn’t want to give up what she thinks is the “perfect marriage” to Brad that Rebecca has. Even when she tells her mother, “’Brad only married me because he thought is would upset his parents,’” her mother insists that she wasn’t trying hard enough (Valdes-Rodriguez 243). This kind of mentality is a cultural struggle for women, that divorce is somehow our fault and that we should have tried harder to keep our “good men” when sometimes people get married for silly reasons in the first place, and it was nothing that we did.  Her mother’s thoughts are centered in old religious ways of thinking, and say Rebecca’s going to hell for her divorce. Becca just wants to be happy, and I see no problem with that. She shouldn’t let her mother oppress her in her choices. This whole novel is a treasure trove of intersectional struggles and triumphs, seen in all of the characters. Andre talks about how Americans see race, “To you, we’re all ‘black’. It’s dehumanizing, actually,” which is the harsh reality of the way that American’s see race (Valdes-Rodriguez 250). We see this throughout the novel with the ladies as well, and their different backgrounds, but all considered Latina. I would say that she overcomes her struggles in her love life and ends up happy in the end. It may be a little unrealistic, but I suppose that it could happen to someone. She seems to enjoy herself when it comes to living for herself. This is a good thing, and can inspire women to find love in their lives that will love them for who they are and not for what they aren’t.