Lou Ann Ruiz Case Study

Women fall victim to abuse and abandonment from men. Lou Ann Ruiz was a young mother living in Tucson, Arizona with her husband, Angel. When she was pregnant with her first child, Dwayne Ray, her husband abandoned her on Halloween. Angel left before they were to raise a child, a task that is difficult for a family, let alone a single mother. Despite being only a baby, Turtle was physically and sexually abused by a male figure in her life. After Taylor receives Turtle, she bathes her and sees that she is covered in bruises. Taylor was shocked to see this, saying “I thought I knew about every ugly thing that one person does to another, but I had never even thought about such things being done to a baby girl.” (31) Jolene Shanks was abused by

her husband, Newt Hardbine’s, father. When Jolene was talking to Taylor in the hospital after getting shot, “[Jolene] started telling me how it was all Newt’s daddy’s fault, he beat him up, beat her up, and even had hit the baby with a coal scuttle” (11, 12) Newt’s father didn’t just abuse his son, he abused his entire family. The abuse got so bad, that the result was Newt being killed and Jolene suffering serious gunshot wounds.
Women are constricted by societal expectations to become housewives.

Lou Ann feels obligated to stay with Angel. When Taylor asks if Lou Ann would move back in with Angel if he wanted things to go back to the way they were, she responded “Well, what else could I do? He’s my husband, isn’t he?” (157) Lou Ann doesn’t believe that she could live without Angel because she was raised believing that she should depend on her husband for support. Teen mothers had to drop out of school to care for their child. At Taylor’s old high school, “girls were dropping by the wayside like seeds off a poppyseed bun . . . there were maybe two boys to every one of us” (4) Girls had to give up their education to care for their child while boys could remain in school. This shows inequality because even if a boy was the father of that child, he could still receive an education while the mother cannot. When comforting Estevan after Esperanza tries to kill herself, Taylor feels that she is being a stereotypical housewife. She unintentionally fell back onto old traditions where the woman cooks for the man, saying “From my earliest memory, times of crisis seemed to end up with women in the kitchen preparing food for the men.” (177) This stereotype suggests that a woman’s place is in the home while the men are the ones supporting the

family.
Women are objectified by men. The interviewer for Lou Ann’s job interview was very disrespectful. When Lou Ann returns home from her interview, she tells Taylor “He kept calling me sweetheart and talking to my boobs instead of my face” (201) The interviewer was disrespectful to Lou Ann in a professional setting, showing that he doesn’t take her seriously. The door handle of Fanny Heaven objectifies women. When Lou Ann confesses her disgust with the door handle, she says “The way they made that door handle. Like a woman is something you shove on and walk through.” (202) This door handle and the content of this shop are exploitative of women and their bodies. Before becoming pregnant, Lou Ann was groped on the public bus. When taking the bus home from the doctors, Lou Ann notices that “The high school boys didn’t make remarks under their breath or try to rub up against her when the bus made sudden stops and turns.” (40) She wasn’t treated as a person, but as a sexual object that men believed they could abuse.