Milkman

“At eighteen I had no proper understanding of the ways that constituted encroachment. I had a feeling for them, an intuition, a sense of repugnance for some situations and some people, but I did not know intuition and repugnance counted, did not know I had a right not to like, not to have to put up with, anybody and everybody coming near.” 

The above passage summarizes the ways language—or, in this case, the lack of language—intersects with power in the novel. Milkman’s harassment of middle sister typically consists of approaching her in a public place and making seemingly polite conversation. Although his powerful position in the community means that these interactions carry an implicit threat of violence, middle sister has a hard time recognizing them as coercive. This is partly because she, as well as the community in general, is so accustomed to dramatic episodes of physical violence that everything else fades into the background. However, it’s also a reflection of the fact that the patriarchal society in which she lives doesn’t provide her with the tools she needs to understand and articulate her situation; she lacks the words to explain the instinctive “repugnance” she feels towards milkman’s “encroachment,” and is any case expected to remain quiet and deferential in her dealings with men. This only increases milkman’s power over her, since he is able to exploit her silence itself.

“Small-numbered women, unless married to, mother of, groupie of, or in some way connected with the men of power in our area—meaning the paramilitaries in our area—would have gotten nowhere in directing communal action, in influencing to their advantage public opinion here. Local women en masse, however, did so command, and on the rare occasions when they rose up against some civic, social, or local circumstance, they presented a surprising formidable force.” 

Although the very premise of Milkman—middle sister’s struggle to deal with a stalker—centers on the threat misogyny poses, the novel does not depict women as entirely powerless.