Exploration of Masculinity and Its Contradictions: A Nuanced Examination of Gloria Naylor’s Male Characters in The Women of Brewster Place, Mama Day and Bailey’s Café

Naylor's novels consistently address the oppression of women due to their sex and race. Her novels often portray men as irresponsible and unwilling to commit to any relationship. Naylor's literary corpus offers a comprehensive assessment of masculinity that goes beyond basic binary oppositions between positive and negative masculine depictions. Her works expose the underlying inconsistencies of masculine beliefs, especially when they intersect with race, class, and economic circumstance in African American communities. Naylor's work shows how societal forces and influential injustices shape masculine identity, which creates a pressure in the community they belong to. Therefore women toil emotionally in search of love and support, but in vain. African American women wouldn’t have been suppressed and neglected had the African American men given them what they needed. To live in a family and as a family is a dream for African American women. The reluctance of men to take up responsibility is vividly portrayed through the male characters portrayed by Gloria Naylor. This paper endeavours to discuss the hegemony of African American men and the pitiable plight of women because of the negligence of men.