Masculinity Victimizes Everyone

In The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz demonstrates how the gender construct of masculinity damages both men and women.  The Dominican Republic expectations of what it means to be a man causes Oscar to objectify women.  For Oscar, women represent a form of transcendence from his status as a dork.  When Ybon enters into Oscar’s life, she is described as “God’s last-ditch attempt to put [Oscar] back on the proper path of Dominican male-itude” (283). As Ybon kisses Oscar, Oscar’s first thought is, “Transcendence is mine” (305).  Oscar views women as symbols rather than as people, as representations with the sole purpose of quantifying his self-worth.  Viewing an individual as the single source of salvation for another dehumanizes the complexity and autonomy of that individual, whose enforced purpose in life is to save the other.  Accustomed to Dominican masculinity, Oscar does not consider the possibility of Ybon having a choice to not be with him.  After already getting severely beaten by the henchmen of Ybon’s boyfriend, Oscar returns to the Dominican Republic for Ybon.  Even after Ybon tells Oscar they cannot be together, Oscar spends the next twenty-seven days writing and stalking Ybon outside her home.  He would write letters to her about their impending marriage, which she did not agree to, and their eventual move to the United States, which she also did not agree to (317).  All this is motivated by what Oscar considers “love”, yet Oscar’s liberal use of the word “love” renders it meaningless, as he “falls in love” with every beautiful woman he sees without ever talking to her or knowing her name.

It is not simply hooking up with women that decide whether Oscar has transcended his loser status, but the degree of beauty those women embody.  Dominican masculinity evaluates women’s self-worth on beauty alone, and when women lacks beauty they are reduced in their worth to men, which becomes the only worth she has in life through a masculine lens.  While a high school substitute teacher, Oscar imagines “twisted bedroom-only fantasies” with another teacher, Nataly, since “she was not hot enough to openly date” (265).  Oscar fantasizes about Nataly undressing and cooking for him under his command.  The concept of Dominican masculinity causes Oscar to believe that women are only deserving of his respect if they are beautiful.  When Oscar tells Yunior that he has a date, Yunior’s first question is whether she is beautiful (313).  By prescribing to the demands of Dominican masculinity, the principal characteristic that determines for Oscar and Yunior whether a woman is worth dating is not her personality or talents, but her physical appearance, which causes unfulfilling relationships for both Oscar and Yunior throughout the book.