Usually we think of gender roles as natural and biological and it is not,and we actually don’t think of it differently until we see our sex act differently and portray the other sex.For example, “All young girls under the age of 14 within healthy weights look good but 35% of them are restricting their food intake in some way”(N.Pag.). So what we are talking about here is 14 year old girls whose bodies are changing and developing and depriving themselves at every meal”(N.Pag.). This emphasizes that girls even boys will hurt their bodies just to be the size favorable to everyone. Yet, practicing these type of behaviors comes with a risk of having eating disorders and be anorexic.
Furthermore, gender roles impact the characters in House on Mango Street because they can’t live their lives because they are women who are considered less superior. Women also weren’t able to vote until 1920.For example, “gets locked indoors because her husband is afraid Rafaela will run away since she is too beautiful to look at”(Rafaela Who Drinks Coconut And Papaya Juice on Tuesdays( P.79).(cisneros) In this time the men were the people who made the decisions in the relationships. In addition men ruled over women because they were considered second class citizens in a male dominated