The oppression of women in Chinese culture is strongly depicted in Pearl Buck’s novel The Good Earth. Buck explores the idea that “Women are not as equally valued as men” through the use of characters such as O-lan, who was constantly victimized for not adhering to the cultural ideas of how a woman should be. The women of the novel were seen as objects and were forced to sacrifice many things all for the benefit of men. Women were not as equally valued as men as they were seen as objects rather than humans. Selling women was a common ancient Chinese practice that undermined female worth. O-lan describes how the female servants were victims of sexual abuse and were “… beaten or carried to a man’s bed, as the whim was, and not to one man’s
