Rosario Castellanos: Gender Stereotypes In Her Work

In the coming of age story of Sandra Cisnero’s novel The House on Mango Street, the author uses simple but profound language to express the young girl and main character, Esperanza’s, goal is to become an autonomous individual who controls her own choices. She is driven by her observations of the many trapped and powerless people of Mango Street. This desire is physically represented by her dream of a new house in a different place—at first it is a house for her family, but at the story’s end, it is a house she owns alone, where she can write. It not only symbolizes her dream of agency of trying to change her name to something that shows the “real” her. This novel also presents identity

In Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, a young, impoverished girl with Hispanic origin, named Esperanza adapts to her new life in Chicago, on Mango Street. Throughout her time living on Mango Street Esperanza observes how other people are living around her, especially women and young girls like her. Esperanza has a variety of female role models in her life. Many are trapped in abusive relationships, waiting for others to change their lives. Some are actively trying to change things on their own. Through these women and Esperanza’s reactions to them, Cisneros’ shows not only the hardships women face, but also explores their lack of power to overcome them.

Julia Alvarez's historical novel, In The Time of the Butterflies, captures the lives of the Mirabal sisters and the Dominican Republic under the appalling dictatorship of Trujillo. Unfortunately, in a dangerous scheme to overthrow Trujillo, the Mirabal sisters meet their tragic fate. Before their death, these martyrs dodged through dozens of obstacles. In the Dominican Republic, it was extremely difficult for women to be respected and taken seriously because they were seen as domesticated and inferior. This old ideology of gender roles gravely affected the Mirabal sisters and their participation in their revolution against Trujillo; however, they still managed to challenge these gender limitations throughout the book.

In the short story “Growing” by Helena Maria Viramontes, the author focuses on the forces that separate women from being themselves and rights to live their own lives. In the story, the father forces the youngest sister in the family, Lucia, to chaperone her older sister, Naomi. The reason he compels Lucia to chaperone her sister is to report Naomi’s every action, behavior and conversation to him. Despite Naomi wonders why her father refused to trust her and put someone to spy on her, the only reply from her father is “TU ERES MUJER” (36). Naomi was being punished just because her gender identity. Viramotes describes, “He thundered like a great voice above the heavens, and that was the end of any argument, any question, because he said those words not as a truth, but as a verdict, and she could almost see the clouds parting, the thunderbolts breaking the tranquility of her sex” (36). Her father is now transformed into a God who can

Women’s struggle for power in a patriarchal society has been a monumental fight throughout the ages, and even now women around the world fight for the right to simple rights like an education, and voice within society. In Julia Alvarez's book In the Time of the Butterflies the character Minerva Mirabel portrays women’s fight for power through her own personal struggle for power in her home against her father, and in the Dominican Republic society against Trujillo, and patriarchal norms of the time.

In society many find that males hold dominance and make all of the major choices. This is just a stereotype that many people seem to believe. There are many stereotypes for a variety of concepts but that does not mean they are true. There are few females that stand up against sexist stereotypes, but for the few people who have spoken out against them literature has been an effective way of getting their message out. Feminism has impacted literature in several ways; it allows people to share their messages about stereotypes. In the book In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez there are many times when feminism is present, along with the many stereotypes found in the Dominican culture.

Although it is not always clear, women are constantly being treated as lesser than men. Women and men are approaching equality, but many women are still being treated unfairly. White communities usually pretend that everything is perfect and cover up this problem. Hispanics, on the other hand, often make the mistreatment of women perspicuous. This is portrayed in the novella The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros displays the mistreatment of women in the hispanic culture through the women in Esperanza’s life.

In Mexican American society , women are deemed inferior to men, evident in traditional family roles, the male is the head of the family who provides for the family , while the woman stays at home to look after the children she is expected to provide for her husband . In the third vignette of ‘The House on Mango Street’ titled ‘Boys and Girls’ the reader is informed of the division between men and women when Esperanza refers to herself and her sister Nenny , and her brothers, “They’ve got plenty to say to me and Nenny inside the house. But outside they can’t be seen talking to girls”. The male dominance begins at a very young age.

To explicate, Christine De Pizan main purpose is to respond to the recurrent theme of defamation done by male writers. She addresses misogyny as

Sixty years after the United States was created many people started to rethink slavery and the lack of women’s rights. Sojourner Truth was a victim of these concurring issues. IN “Ain’t I A Woman?”, Sojourner Truth is claiming that women in her day and age are being treated as if they are less able than men to be who they want, and this robs Truth and all women of the opportunities they were promised which angers and oppresses her. Truth is using repetition, pathos, and ethos to prove her claim.

Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a self-taught philosopher, poet and forward thinker, wrote many empowering poems that captured how she felt during the time she was living in. Two of which “Foolish Men” and “On her Portrait” express how she didn’t like the stereotypical roles women were put in during her life. These poems show true anguish and express a slight distain for men.

Loose Women, is a collection of poetry written by Sandra Cisneros. A wonderful collection of words that speak to the beauty, disgusting, painful, extraordinary things about love, sexuality, women, bodies. Throughout the novel Cisneros revels in sort of “bad girl” image: however the overall persona is that of a passionate, sexual woman who’s had her share of both joy and disappointment. We all know Sandra Cisneros roots come from Mexico and is from Mexican American immigrant family and the culture for her is very different. I can relate to Cisneros’ culture different, since I am from Indian and in India women are considered to be the goddess from ancient time, however they are not being treated like goddess. Cisneros poetic style makes the book easier to read and comprehend and I think her Mexican roots play big part of her writing. In the book Loose Woman, the author seems to be talking about herself in each poems and is trying to express woman’s journey through the collections of her poems. Through her poems Cisneros’ voice shows love, hate and all the stages of feelings the woman goes through and sends message of bravery.

In the book Selenidad author Debra Paredez discusses the emergence of an identifactory scheme that originated after the death of popular Tejano performer, Selena Quintanilla. Paredez's description of the characteristics of Selenidad are an accepted description of today's Latina femininity and used to better understand what it is to be Latina. In addition, Paradez describes Selenidad as a reconstructed symbolism that transcends various groups within the Latino/a community as seen in modern popular performances.

The quote above I believe sums up the issues raised on artist Alma Lopez re-adaption of La Virgen. Lopez addresses the patriarchal issues embedded in Catholicism and challenges these ideals through art in order to create space for women who do not fit the patriarchy ideal of La Virgen. She indicates that women are constantly being sexualized, oppressed, and marginalized due to the sexist mentality in the Catholic church. Lopez discusses how men view our body as ugly because of the hegemonic ideals of how women are supposed to be portrayed. She even states how men objectify women as a sexual object or saint. As a result, creating restrictions toward women. These issues are still relevant today. For instance, sexist men have the need to demean

This thesis consists of Hanif’s portrait of women and their marginalized positions in the society and economic, social and religious pride and prejudices towards women in Pakistani society which is an important theme of his novels. He belongs to those who are proof of that some people can tell the truth more comprehensively and authentically with fiction than facts. In his second novel Our Lady of Alice Bhatti (2012), he discusses the battle and determination of a woman fitting in with minority goes out in a patriarchal society and endures accordingly.