Dirty Girls Social Club-Rebecca

The character that I plan to focus on is Rebecca. I found Rebecca to be an interesting character from the beginning when she was first introduced by Lauren. From Laruen’s eyes, Rebecca is very “perfect” and stuck up. It is easy to sense that there is going to be tension in this friendship. From Lauren’s introduction however, it is easy to see that there are many areas in Rebecca’s life in which she is both privileged and oppressed.

                First off, I would say that Rebecca is privileged because of her religious status. Rebecca is a Catholic and Catholics are very dominant in the American society. Later in the novel, we can see how her upbringing as a Catholic, impacts various aspects of her life. First off, she spends a majority of her free time doing volunteer activities such as reading to the blind and helping raise money for runaway youth funds and battered women’s shelters (Valdes-Rodriguez 18). Although these are all very good contributions, I can imagine it is stressful always trying to do so much. In addition to that, Rebecca recognizes that she did not marry her husband Brad out of love, but for his resources. She wants out of the marriage, but her religion is highly against divorce, and she fears rejection from her parents. She later falls in love with another man that is able to help her defy her religion and break off the marriage. She realizes that happiness is more important than how other people look at her.

                Another area of Rebecca’s life where she shows she has privilege is her socioeconomic status. Although she has faced struggles in her career being a Latina woman, she was able to climb to the top with her very successful magazine, Ella, which is aimed at Latina women. Her husband is also a very beneficial accessory to her socioeconomic status. “He is a non-Latino white guy from Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, who has been working on the same doctoral thesis for the past eight years at Cambridge University in England” (18). He benefits her because he is white and has a high socioeconomic status himself. He is also rich because of his parents which is another major reason Rebecca is with him.

                Although being a Latina female can be very challenging for Rebecca, she is also very privileged by her looks. She is very thin, which is valued by most Americans, and she presents herself in a very professional manor. The novel explains to us that she never wears anything too revealing and has a lot of respect for her body. Lastly, she is part of the dominant age group at 28 years old. She has not begun facing discrimination because she is “too old”.

                It is easy to see how the many aspects in Rebecca’s life intersect to make her the person she is. Intersectionality focuses on “an intersectional approach requires us to consider them as overlapping, and that without that perspective, we can’t fully understand how multiple identities overlap to shape women’s experiences on the individual and institutional level” (Launius and Hassel 118). For example, Rebecca is both a woman and a Latina. If she was just a white woman, it would be much easier for her to be successful because being white is the dominant race. Despite this challenge, she is still able to become extremely successful with her magazine. As I mentioned earlier as well, it was very beneficial for Rebecca to have a white husband. This also helped with the fact that she was so successful, and people valued her. The tables were slightly changed when she broke off the marriage with Brad and went after a man with darker skin than her. Her parents frowned upon the decision and she wasn’t sure how it was going to impact her career. Despite these concerns, Rebecca was able to find her happiness.

                Looking at how love impacts the character, it is easy to see that finding love was able to fix many of Rebecca’s problems. It was obvious how unhappy she was with Brad, and she felt as though she had extremely high standards to meet in order to make both his parents, and her own parents proud. His family already discriminated against her because of her race. She was also able to break out of her comfort zone and explore her sexuality. This is very evident in the scene where she breaks out the fancy lingerie. Lastly, she is also able to come clean with Lauren about how she is jealous of her life. In the end, finally being able to “really love” someone helps Rebecca get back on track with her life. Although love solves many of her problems, it does not always mean that this is realistic. A lot of the times in real life, love can be a source of the problem. We can also see this is Sara’s situation. Her love for Roberto is so strong that she convinces herself to stay in an abusive relationship and see the positives. Thus, love can be both rewarding and non-rewarding in reality. Everyone’s situation is different.