Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez is a particularly striking read, particularly in the present times of the widely circulating ‘me too’ movement. Gomez makes a strong emphasis in her novel on gender and female empowerment. She subtly points out societal expectations by means of  her characters impressions of one another and contrasts these expectations through the fictional backdrop of her novel wherein female protagonists wield the power of command, property, and salvation.

One such early instance of gender comparisons appears shortly after Gilda has rescued the Girl. As the Girl assesses her rescuer, in all her strength and glory, she, “thought for a moment: This is a man! A little man!

Gilda laughed out loud at the idea in the Girl’s head and said, No, I’m a woman. Then without speaking aloud she said, I am a woman, you know that. And you know I am a woman as no other you have known, nor has your mother known, in life or death. I am a woman as you are, and more.”

It is of great significance what these first uncensored thoughts of the Girl reveal of what she has experienced and come to expect from society and gender roles. Her initial disbelief that such a self assured and strong individual could be female reveals the level of institutionalized and socialized oppression bestowed upon women and their assumed roles.

It is of particular relevance that Gomez chose to make her central characters lesbians, which sets them further apart from any reliance on the male counterpart to satisfy needs or wants. Virginia Fusco in her dissertation, ‘Love and Desire in the Postmodern Era,’ writes that, “thanks to feminism and the growing emphasis on the «personal» as opposed to the «public», women demanded free access to pleasure and to a satisfactory sexuality that was not subordinated to reproduction or legitimated by the heterosexual dominant model.”