The House On Mango Street Gender Roles

What exactly makes a woman a woman or a man a man? Is it clothing, hair length, job or purposes? In The House On Mango Street, the author, Sandra Cisneros, constructs the idea of gender roles; based on the life of a young latina girl named Esperanza, living in Chicago during 1984. The author does this using examples of the effects of gender roles. Also, the concepts related to gender roles in The House on Mango Street show up in our current lifestyles.

To begin, in The House On Mango Street, Cisneros describes how her grandmother is affected by gender roles. On page 11, the text states, “...my great grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier...She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow.”. This text reveals how gender roles impact one character’s life detrimentally. The grandfather of main character Esperanza regards Esperanza’s grandmother as an item, and thus leads a sad life, as most women do.

Second, the author of The House On Mango Street constructs the idea of gender roles by depicting how Esperanza tries to rebel against these roles.

On pages 88 to 89, the novel reads, “My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settles and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain..I have begun my own quiet war...I am the one who leaves the table like a man, without putting back the chair or picking up the plate.”. This quote expresses how Esperanza leaves gender roles behind. She chooses not to proceed as how people think she should be (as a female): as in, polite, clean, settled and

tame.
In addition, Cisneros illustrates how one girl is affected by gender roles in a physical way. On page 92, the author writes, “But Sally doesn’t tell about that time he hit her with his hands just like a dog, she said, like if I was an animal...Just because I’m a daughter…”. This excerpt displays how one young woman is mistreated as if she is a “dog”, because she is a daughter; which is an example of gender roles for women.
Furthermore, the ideas Sandra Cisneros constructs about gender roles in The House On Mango Street in 1984 continue to present themselves in today’s society. The article, For Women and Girls, it´s still a man´s world, supports this - “One study..by the World Policy Analysis Center of the University of California in Los Angeles...found that about 90 percent of countries still have laws and policies that give women and girls fewer rights and protections than men and boys.”. This quote exemplifies how laws treat women differently from men, because it dictates what behavior is acceptable for females being different from males.
In conclusion, this exhibits how author Sandra Cisneros communicates the ideas of gender roles in The House On Mango Street, through the life of young Esperanza and her connections. These issues still emerge in our modern world. In the end, we are all human, and should work together under the same rules and rights.