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What are the "roles" of women?

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"One day she is through and lets him know enough is enough. Out the door he goes. Clothes, records, shoes. Out the window and the door locked. But that night he comes back and sends a big rock through the window. Then he is sorry and she opens the door again. Same story."

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"One day she is through and lets him know enough is enough. Out the door he goes. Clothes, records, shoes. Out the window and the door locked. But that night he comes back and sends a big rock through the window. Then he is sorry and she opens the door again. Same story."

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This piece of evidence from "Minerva Writes a Poem" is basically Minerva trying to stand er ground and stand up for herself ("enough is enough"). She is not treated well at all and is genuinely a good person. She knows what's good for her but after her husband apologizes, she let him back in, which was probably not the right decision. Because later after, she walked outside all black and blue and asked what she could do. She was limited on what she could do because he obviously has power over her.

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“...she’s going to get a real job downtown because that’s where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone in the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house far away.” (pg. 26)   “What matters, Marin says, is for the boys to see us and for us to see them. (pg. 27)

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“...she’s going to get a real job downtown because that’s where the best jobs are, since you always get to look beautiful and get to wear nice clothes and can meet someone in the subway who might marry you and take you to live in a big house far away.” (pg. 26)   “What matters, Marin says, is for the boys to see us and for us to see them. (pg. 27)

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These quotes go together and relate to the theme of "Roles of Women". This is significant because the stereotype of women is get hitched and let the man make all the money while they stay home and take care of the house. She wants to wear pretty clothes and wait for a man to pick her up and save her.

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“The man saved his money to bring her here. He saved and saved because she was alone with the baby boy in that country.” (pg. 76)

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“The man saved his money to bring her here. He saved and saved because she was alone with the baby boy in that country.” (pg. 76)

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This relates to our theme because mamacita had to come to Mango Street against her will because the man wanted her to. He saved and saved and brought her and the baby boy along with him.

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Quote 1 “Sally got married like we knew she would, young, and not ready but married just the same”

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Quote 1 “Sally got married like we knew she would, young, and not ready but married just the same”

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Taking a look back at the role of women in society during the time period that this book takes place in, we can clearly see that women are oftentimes not in control of their own lives. This is such the case with Sally because in the quote, she is being married even though she is not ready, and even further into the excerpt we can see that her family had her marry in another state where it was legal to marry before the eighth grade. This confirmed the stereotype that women in this time were only seen as objects for the men of the households.

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“And anyway, a woman’s place is sleeping so she can wake up early with the tortilla star, the one that appears early just in time to rise and catch the hind legs hide behind the sink, beneath the four-clawed tub under the swollen floorboards nobody fixes, in the corner of your eyes.” (Pg. 31)

This quote shows how women are given predetermined roles that are not great in the slightest of ways. She is basically being told that it’s women’s jobs to catch mice early in the morning. Not only do they “have” to wake up early, but apparently they also “have” to catch mice. This is far too backwards, and something that has definitely been improved upon in modern times.

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“...so wild she wouldn’t marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier.”  (Pg. 11)

This quote illustrates the unequal powers in a relationship, where it was acceptable for the man to decide as he wished, and women were just supposed to obey them as if they had no choice but to.

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Quote 1 “He never hits me hard. She said as mama rubs lard on all the places where it hurts. Then at school she said that she fell”

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Quote 1 “He never hits me hard. She said as mama rubs lard on all the places where it hurts. Then at school she said that she fell”

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During the time period when this book takes place, women were often physically and mentally abused by their significant others. While abuse was going on in relationships, women often lied about scars and bruises caused by their significant others. This relates to the theme of how women during the time period of this book were often treated and viewed as objects, and oftentimes making excuses on behalf of their significant other for their wounds.

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Roles of women are stated clearly throughout the novel written by Sandra Cisneros. We only read about it a few times near the first few vignettes and then more often throughout the last vignettes.

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Purpose of the Following Theme Within the Text

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Purpose of the Following Theme Within the Text

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The purpose of including this theme in the novel allows readers to see that women did play a specific role and were treated more or less like objects rather than people. Also, it helps show that women were the ones who took care of things (house roles, not treated equally etc.)

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“We never see Marin until her aunt comes home from work, and even then she can only stay out in front.” (pg. 27)

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“We never see Marin until her aunt comes home from work, and even then she can only stay out in front.” (pg. 27)

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The significance of this quote is that she has to stay in her house and watch her little cousins. Women usually have to stay in the house and watch the babies or clean the house but since the mother is out working, Marin has to take the role of a mom/women and take care of the house.

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“Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life.” (pg. 27)

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“Marin, under the streetlight, dancing by herself, is singing the same song somewhere. I know. Is waiting for a car to stop, a star to fall, someone to change her life.” (pg. 27)

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This quote relates because the stereotype is that women can’t do anything for themselves; they need a man to do everything for them and they are just there to clean and cook. She is taking that role and waiting for someone else to change her life instead of doing it herself.

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Van Heusen "man's world"

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“Whatever her reasons, whether she is fat, or can’t climb that stairs, or if afraid of English, she won’t come down.”(pg. 77)

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“Whatever her reasons, whether she is fat, or can’t climb that stairs, or if afraid of English, she won’t come down.”(pg. 77)

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The significance of this quote is that mamacita won’t come down out of the house. She is stuck in the house cleaning and taking care of the baby while the man is at work. She is uncomfortable and does not want to come down and she was brought here when she did not want to come. She did it because the man told her to.

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“And the story goes she never forgave him. She looked out the window her whole life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow. I wonder if she made the best with what she got or was she sorry because she couldn’t be all the things she wanted to be. Esperanza. I have inherited her name, but I don’t want to inherit her place by the window.” (Pg. 11)

This quote shows how Esperanza doesn’t want to fall in the same pattern as her grandmother did. She doesn’t want to resent her husband, and waste her life looking outside a window daydreaming about her. She wishes her life were better and much different than it is.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ted Talk: "We Should All Be Feminists"

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ted Talk: "We Should All Be Feminists"

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This Ted Talk is about her life growing up in Nigeria and all the struggles she faced being a woman of color and growing up very poor. She talks about how important it is to be a feminist. One encounter she had was when one of her male friends said the word "feminist" was something bad. From then on out she tried to educate everyone she could about what really being a feminist is.

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: We should all be feminists

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We teach girls that they can have ambition, but not too much ... to be successful, but not too successful, or they'll threaten men, says author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. In this classic talk that started a worldwide conversation about feminism, Adichie asks that we begin to dream about and plan for a different, fairer world -- of happier men and women who are truer to themselves.

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My personal reflection to the whole novel and the specific "Roles of Women" relates to me a lot. Everyone will always joke and say you belong in the kitchen or you should be good with a broom it's in your past. Many people don't joke about this. I have personally encountered a lot of ignorant men AND women. Men nowadays still think they have more entitlement over women. It amazes me how many women also let men boss them around and get told what to do every second of the day. My parents out of 4 kids had 3 girls and they all taught us we are equal to anyone we encounter. I think Esperanza was not taught this at a young age or at all throughout the whole novel. To her, all she saw was a women had a right and wrong place to be but luckily she thought for herself and saw she did not want this. She had strong feminism but I do not think the others on Mango Street did.

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My personal reflection of the theme "Roles of Women" affects me a lot. I wouldn't say I'm a feminist, but a lot of the time, women are seen as they stay at home mom, take care of the kids, keep the house clean, make the food, clean the dishes etc. This is not just the woman's job. I believe Esperanza does not want to be that woman and she would stand up for herself and be independent, after reading "Bums in the Attic." She says how one day, she will own her ow house and if anyone need ask to stay the night, she would offer her attic because she knows how it was to live without a home. To this day, there is the saying "man of the house" why couldn't it be "woman of the house"? Men have naturally been taught that they have some automatic power over women.

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Europe Wants to Diversify Its Pool of Astronauts 

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Europe Wants to Diversify Its Pool of Astronauts 

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This European space station is encouraging women and disabled people to join their team. Right now, of the 7 astronauts ready to be sent on a mission, only one of them is a woman.

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In its first hiring drive in over a decade, the continent's space agency is looking to recruit disabled people and more women.

A full-scale model of the Ariane V space rocket at Le Bourget Air and Space Museum in Paris in 2019. Credit... Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto, via Getty Images

BRUSSELS - In a rare opportunity for Europeans dreaming of leaving the mundane duties of life on Earth, the European Space Agency is recruiting new astronauts for the first time in over a decade, with more diversity as the goal.

Of the seven astronauts from the agency currently ready to be sent on missions to the International Space Station, only one of them, Samantha Cristoforetti, a 43-year-old Italian, is a woman.

But the agency is now encouraging women to apply for thetwo dozen new slots. It is also initiating an effort to allow people with disabilities to go into space, a program called the "Parastronaut Feasibility Project."

"You do not need to be a superman or a superwoman," Lucy van der Tas, the agency's head of recruitment, said in an interview. "We want to motivate as many people as possible to apply. But in the end, we are looking for very specific candidates."

The goal is to select four to six astronauts, as well as around 20 reserves who could take part in shorter missions. Recruits with disabilities would first join the reserve group and work with the agency to figure out any modifications needed for them to go into space.

Paradoxically, the difficulties of living in space for humans is a reason to encourage opportunities for astronauts with disabilities, Ms. Cristoforetti said. "When it comes to space travel, everyone is disabled," she said. The solution is "just technology."

To decide what types of disabilities are compatible with space missions, the European Space Agency, which represents 22 European countries, consulted the International Paralympic Committee and came up with a system of categories: red (incompatible), green (compatible) and yellow (compatible with some technical modifications to the mission).

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Samantha Cristoforetti, an Italian astronaut, on the International Space Station in 2015. Credit... NASA

Right now, recruitment is open to people with leg amputations, with marked differences in leg length or who are especially short. But the hope is to open the program further.

"We feel strongly that if we don't start now, it will never happen," Ms. van der Tas said. "We are opening the door to a certain part of the society, so they too can dream of becoming an astronaut."

At this stage, there is no guarantee that an astronaut with disabilities will go to space.

The successful candidate will not be "a space tourist who happens also to have a disability," said Dr. David Parker, the agency's director of the robotics and spaceflight program. Ms. van der Tas added that recruits would need the necessary motor skills to work and leave the space station independently in an emergency.

Given that life on the space station resembles a constant confinement, they would also have to be able to see and hear. "Once everyone is locked away in a small space together, the only way they can communicate with anybody else is via a screen," Ms. van der Tas said.

The astronaut selection procedure takes 18 months and includes psychological tests, medical screening, psychometric screening and interviews.

Ultimately, the lucky few will set out on missions to the International Space Station or, in the longer term, to the moon or even to Mars. But first, they will have to undergo several years of tough training, which includes learning survival skills, how to run the spacecraft, mastering Russian and spending up to eight hours underwater simulating weightlessness.

Applicants must have some minimum requirements, the agency said, including a master's degree in natural sciences, medicine, engineering, mathematics or computer science, or a test-pilot license, and a minimum of three years of relevant work experience.

Applicants need to show that they will be able to deal with the varied challenges of space travel. Daily life in a space station consists of washing with wet towels instead of showers, arduous physical effort, meals of dehydrated, packaged food, and continual weightlessness, which transforms everyday activities like sleeping and urinating.

Astronauts must also be willing to participate in life science experiments. One of their principal tasks is finding out what the impact of space is on human bodies.

"Space is actually quite a hostile environment for humans," said Jennifer Ngo-Anh, the agency's research and payloads program coordinator. "There are high levels of radiation, crews are living autonomously in confined and confining spacecrafts and are exposed to zero gravity, which leads to dramatic body adaptations." Loss of muscle, bone mass and strength, as well as loss of blood volume, are among the temporary physical consequences of a long stay in space.

"You need to be an all-rounder," Ms. van Der Tas said. "You don't have to be the best at anything, but you need to be good at many things."

So far, 90 percent of all astronauts have been men. The European Space Agency has sent only two women into space, Ms. Cristoforetti and Claudie Haigneré, who went there twice, in 1996 and 2001.

During the last recruitment round in 2008, only about 16 percent of the 8,000 applicants were women.

A European Space Agency control room in Darmstadt, Germany. So far, 90 percent of all astronauts have been men. Credit... Yann Schreiber

Recruiting more women has scientific benefits, Ms. van Der Tas said. "Space affects us very differently, depending on age, gender and ethnicity," she said. "The astronaut corps worldwide is very small, so we need to diversify it as much as possible."

To try to promote a scientific career among young women, there was even a Barbie doll modeled after Ms. Cristoforetti in 2019.

Ms. Cristoforetti said in an interview last year that the only time she felt being a woman was any sort of hindrance was when she had to put on a spacesuit sized for a man.

But in her book, "Diary of An Apprentice Astronaut," published in English this summer, she admits that she experienced "discrimination that was subtle enough to have been ambiguous."

Ms. Cristoforetti has just started training for another mission, which usually takes about two years. When she goes, she will leave behind her young daughter, now 4 years old.

Then she might face some of the challenges portrayed in a recent film, "Proxima,"which tells the story of a French astrophysicist, a single mother with a young daughter, preparing for a one-year mission in space.

Ms. Cristoforetti met with the lead actress, Eva Green, and the movie's director, Alice Winocour, who said she wanted the film to be "as close to the reality as possible."

"Cinema doesn't often show women as both mothers and superheroines," Ms. Winocour said. "It's time that women should assume that you can be an astronaut and a mother too."

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Europe Wants to Diversify Its Pool of Astronauts

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In its first hiring drive in over a decade, the continent's space agency is looking to recruit disabled people and more women. BRUSSELS - In a rare opportunity for Europeans dreaming of leaving the mundane duties of life on Earth, the European Space Agency is recruiting new astronauts for the first time in over a decade, with more diversity as the goal.

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Quote 2 “But Sally doesn’t tell me about the times that he hit her with his hands like a dog, she said, like if I was an animal”

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Quote 2 “But Sally doesn’t tell me about the times that he hit her with his hands like a dog, she said, like if I was an animal”

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This much relates to the first theme of the first quote, about how women were often abused mentally and physically by their significant others during the time that this book takes place. In this quote, it is brought to the reader's attention that Sally doesn’t tell Esperanza about the many times that she is hit with hands like a dog, and being physically abused by her boyfriend. At the end of the quote, Sally says that she was hit, like she was an animal, confirming the notion that Sally is being abused by her significant other and that he thinks of Sally as someone lesser and weaker then he is.

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Quote 3 “You’re not my daughter, you're not my daughter. And then he broke into his hands.”

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Quote 3 “You’re not my daughter, you're not my daughter. And then he broke into his hands.”

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This is a more vague quote, but with context clues from the paragraph before we can make an observation about what Sally’s significant other is thinking when she skips school. In the paragraph before this quote takes place, Sally is talking to a boy one day, and the next day not going to school, and then the next day after that the father goes crazy and beats Sally. This is reinforced by the statement that he just forgot that he was her father between the buckle and the belt. Using these context clues with the other themes of the other two quotes, we  can infer that Sally’s father at the end of the third quote is embarrassed that Sally is his daughter. Thus reinforcing the role of how women were to be obedient towards their fathers and be innocent and not break the rules.

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Quote 2 “She says she in love, but I think she did it to escape”

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Quote 2 “She says she in love, but I think she did it to escape”

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Using context clues from the previous excerpt concerning Sally’s life, we can see that she got married at a young age to avoid living with her abusive father. Even though we don’t know for sure that Sally was in true love with the man that she married, it is very apparent that Sally got married at such a young age to avoid the trauma of living with her abusive father, with the additional context of how she got married in another state where it was legal to get married at the young age that she was. This relates to the theme that women during this time period were seen as property by the men that they lived with, instead of calling authorities or any other service, she chose to get married to avoid living with her father.

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Quote 3 “She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission”

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Quote 3 “She sits at home because she is afraid to go outside without his permission”

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This final quote from the excerpt shows that even though Sally got married at such a young age to avoid her abusive father, she still ended up getting married before the eighth grade to a man that seemingly acts not completely different then her father would. This again reinforces the stereotype that women were to be obedient towards the man of the house, and to live life the way that the man of the house seemed fit. Before this quote, she explains that she isn’t allowed to have friends, make phone calls, or look out the window because her husband wouldn't allow her to, even though she knows that these things shouldn't be off limits to her, she still obeys because she has fallen victim to the societal norm of women during this time.

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Over the course of the novel, the theme of women being treated as though they are less than men is featured very prominently.  While I do think that times have definitely improved from years past in terms of equality, we still have quite a long ways to go. The novel highlights many things that may seem way more out there in terms of what we normally hear and see, however it may not be all that far off. Times have simply changed along with our actions, and it seems as though these ways of thinking and acting have not gone away, rather evolved and become more subtile while also more modern. I can't sit here and say this theme has impacted me greatly as I am a man, however I still feel very strongly about it. I wish to see a day where gender and race have no
factor in how people are treated, rather we see everyone as equals, no matter what they look like or where they come from. In the novel this change simply could not happen as there were even characters that were women who were more opposed to the changes of equality, and therefore hindered the change before it could even begin. As long as there are people like that in the world, it will be nearly impossible to fully get to where we need to be and come together as a nation, and hopefully as a people.

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After complying information for not only my 2 personal vignettes for the project, but as well as helping my team help find info in their vignettes, I began to fully realise what living as a women during Esperanza's time was really like and the struggle women had to go through. Common themes through most of the vignettes are that women were often not treated as equal people, but as property to their husbands and most of the time had to look over the kids and take care of the house while the man was away. You can see Esperanza during the novel acknowledge this strive to not end up like women like her grandmother did, where she would stare out the window her entire life and have lots of regrets. As I think back about the important turning points in the story and watching Esperanza grow up to become a grown women, we can see the many changes in her personal self as well as her physical changes from the beginning of the book towards the end of the book. We get to see how Esperanza grows up and strives to live the life the way she wants to live it, and I think perfectly encapsulates how the story was supposed to go.

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Hardees

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Words describing women today in shape of a check mark.

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This chart shows the difference in numbers in how many women occupied different jobs the 1970's compared to 2006-2010's.

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"my name.... It is like the number 9."
This quote is a comparison of Esperanza's name to the number 9. Esperanza is basically comparing herself to the number 9 because the number 9 is like almost there. It's sad because she's not good enough to be 10.

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"At school they say my name funny as if the syllables were made out of tin and hurt the roof of your mouth."
This quote from the vignette "My Name" is comparing her name to the rough feeling of tin against the top of your mouth. Which is very uncomfortable and is a mean comparison to make to someone's name.

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"... a wild horse of a woman, so wild she wouldn't marry. Until my great-grandfather threw a sack over her head and carried her off. Just like that, as if she were a fancy chandelier."
This quote gives us a feeling of sadness and control. Esperanza's great grandfather took her great grandmother as an object, rather than a person with feelings.

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How has the treatment and perception of Women improved, and or worsened in recent years?

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Throughout the time that we read this book, we get to see Esperanza mature from a little girl into a grown women. As the readers, we saw how all the struggles, the problems, the drama, and all the changes that happened in Esperanza's life as she began to mature into a grown women. We got to see the thought process change in Esperanza as she began to notice more and more about the world around her, from the vignette of hips where she begins to grow through puberty, to the first job where Esperanza gets her first job, and even some of the downsides that came with being a women during this time period, where we saw in some cases where Esperanza was sexually assaulted. The progression of Esperanza from a little kid into a grown women was very well done and true to the time in which the book takes place, as well as seeing Esperanza find her true self within her, and become more comfortable with identity. At the end of the book, Esperanza owns her own house, which was a huge theme in this whole book, the fact that she lived with her family on the house on mango street that was not the best house around, that was even made fun of my a nun, with the satisfying conclusion that Esperanza now owns her own home and gets to live in a home that she always wanted to live in.

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"...looked out the window her entire life, the way so many women sit their sadness on an elbow."
This quote symbolizes that Esperanza's great-grandmother didn't live the way she wanted to. Esperanza uses this information about her great-grandmother's forced way of life, to make sure it doesn't happen to her.

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Do you think that we can ever achieve a true sense of equality where everyone is simply seen as a person rather than a preconceived stereotype?

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"...I am in love with those two green apples you call eyes, give them to me why don't you"
Marin is trying to get attention from boys because back then you can't be an independent women. You're supposed to have a man to take care of you and these boys are giving her what she wants.

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"Push, pull. Push, pull. Poof!"
Poof is the onamonapia word and this is when Mamacita came to live on Mango Street even though she did not want to. She had to because the man saved up his money to bring her their.

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"And anyway, a woman's place is sleeping so he can wake up early with the tortilla star, the one that appears early just in time to rise and catch the hind legs behind the sink...."
This quote is really long and basically just lists all of the things the woman of the house should be doing according to Alicia's father. He doesn't help Alicia out at all and expects that she takes over the role because she is the oldest daughter and now, woman of the house.

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"Is a good girl, my friend, studies all night and sees the mice, the ones her father say do not exist."
With this quote, you can apply diction because the words that were chosen to describe how long Alicia works and studies fits perfect. She stays up so late that she sees the 'mice' come out, she wakes up extra early to make her siblings their food. She is becoming a stay-at-home 'mom' figure while also studying at the university. Her time relaxing is becoming less and less.

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"And would've stayed too except when the dark came her father, whose eyes were little from crying, knocked on the door..."
When it says the dark came this is symbolism because the father is abusing to Sally. When it got dark outside the "dark" came as well a.k.a the father.

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"She likes looking at the walls, at how neatly their corners meet, the linoleum roses on the floor, the ceiling smooth as a wedding cake"
The linoleum roses represent her love for her husband. Linoleum roses are fake roses as was her love to her husband. she just married very early to get away from her father.