Sexism in "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar"

In class, we touched briefly on the sexism in Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar.” There mere fact that getting married and having a kid is the “cure” to a woman’s malady is problematic. This makes it seem like all women just need to find a husband and give birth, and all their problems will go away. The community in “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” believes this wholeheartedly, and is indicative of the patriarchal town depicted in the short story.
The community in “The Treatment of Bibi Haldar” is obsessed with marriage. When all the other women in the town are getting married, Bibi fears she is “without promise of a future” (160). Her worry about getting married leads to anxiety attacks. Bibi and the other women in the community want to find husbands because they want “to be spoken for, protected, placed on her path in life” (160). In relationships, men have all the power and control. In fact, it seems a woman almost loses her identity when she no longer speaks for herself and is instead “spoken for.” Talking about weddings, searching for potential bachelors, and planning seem to consume the female life. This depiction of women makes it seem like their sole goal in life is marriage.

When married, however, the wives in Bibi Haldar’s town are stuck doing traditionally feminine housework. Women look forward to getting married so they can “serve suppers and scold servants” (160). Bibi prepares for marriage by scrawling down recipes to prepare for her future husband (162). Haldar’s wife later says Bibi cannot be married; “the girl knows nothing about anything, speaks backward, is practically thirty, can’t light a coal stove, can’t boil rice, can’t tell the difference between fennel and a cumin seed. Imagine her attempting to feed a man!” (163) The narrator says “Bibi had never taught to be a woman” because she had never learned these essential skills, such as embroidering slipcovers or crocheting shawls (162). A woman’s femininity and identity is equated with being able to do domestic chores and please her husband.

Jhumpa Lahiri or Lorrie Moore?

When reading Jhumpa Lahiri’s short story “Sexy,” I felt like I was reading the collection Self-Help by Lorrie Moore. Moore is renowned for her main female characters, often known as “Lorrie Moore women.” Miranda, the main character of “Sexy,” fits the description of a Lorrie Moore woman almost perfectly.

In terms of setting, Miranda’s story takes place in Boston, an urban area on the east coast. Lorrie Moore’s characters also live in similar locations, such as New York City. Like Lorrie Moore’s characters, Miranda has a fine, but relatively dull job working at a radio station soliciting pledges. The job doesn’t seem to excite Miranda, and there doesn’t seem to be much opportunity for upward mobility or growth. Female narrators in Self Help also often struggle with self-confidence issues, such as the overweight mother in “To Fill.” Miranda, while relatively confident, still has her focalized narration describe her facial features as having “a narrow, egg-shaped head that rose to a prominent point. Her features, too, were narrow, with nostrils so slim that they appeared to have been pinched with a clothespin” (87). Her lack of confidence is also reflected when she goes to the Indian grocery to see if Dev’s wife is beatiful (99). Finally, Lorrie Moore women are characterized by their “cute meets” with men, such as meeting at a bus stop in big coats on a pea-soupy night in Moore’s “How to be an Other Woman.” Seemingly taken out of a romantic comedy, Miranda and Dev meet at a makeup counter where they both go out of their way to talk to each other (87).

Importantly, both Lorrie Moore women and Miranda do morally questionable things. For example, many of the Self-Help stories surround stealing or infidelity. Similarly, Miranda engages in a relationship with a married man. Although she does break it off in the end, for the majority of the story, Miranda tries to not think about the wife and how the cheating affects her. This could objectively make Miranda seem like a horrible person, but, like Lorrie Moore women, we get the story focalized through her perspective, so we are much more understanding and thoughtful about her situation. Learning about Miranda’s backstory and loneliness makes it very difficult to judge her for her actions, just like the Lorrie Moore women in Self-Help.