The play seems to marginalise women to some extent. Rose is the only major female character, and much of the time she takes second place to the main action involving her husband Troy and other male characters. Critics have often remarked that she appears limited to the domestic role that was generally expected of black women in the 1950s: being a good wife and mother, and looking after the house.

However, in the latter stages of the play Rose does break out of this conventional mould. Although she has devoted her life to Troy, when she learns of his betrayal after eighteen years of marriage she breaks out in passionate indignation:

Don't you think I ever wanted other things? Don't you think I had dreams and hopes? What about my life? What about me? (II.i)

Here Rose is speaking up for herself, expressing her own needs and desires, asserting her identity independent of her expected social roles. Furthermore, she proceeds to leave Troy and begins to follow her own interests, devoting herself to church activities. In this way she shows herself to be a strong woman capable of making her own life.

It is true, though, that she doesn't entirely abandon Troy. She wants him to be remembered positively after his death and even takes in the daughter that he had by his mistress, Alberta. In this way she resumes her role as a loving, caring, family woman. The play seems to affirm, then, that the proper role of women is the nurturing, maternal one. 

In Fences by August Wilson, what is the play's attitude toward women?

While the roles of African-American men in society are clearly changing in Fences, the same cannot really be said of the women in their lives. For the most part, women occupy a subordinate role in the play, an indication of how they were regarded at that time both in American society and in African-American culture.

A notable parallel emerges between the unfair treatment of black people in the United States and the objectification of women of color within the African-American community. For Troy, Rose isn't a person in her own right, with her own needs, wants, and desires; she isn't someone to be loved, valued, and cherished for what she is. Instead, she's an object to be possessed and controlled.

Troy may justly rail against the numerous examples of unfair treatment he's encountered over the years, but that doesn't stop him from cheating on Rose or excluding her from discussions with Bono, which he describes as "men talk," discussions which revolve around treating women as sex objects. And throughout it all, Rose continues to adopt a submissive posture, spending most of the time stuck in the kitchen, slaving away for the menfolk in her life.

In Fences by August Wilson, what is the play's attitude toward women?

A good - and a complicated - question.  Wilson focuses on the male perspective, on the differences between Troy and his each of his sons and Troy and Bono.  Women are a smaller part of the play, but Rose and Raynell do give some clues.

The best answer is...