Treatment of Women

On the one hand, we find an extreme Chicana-lesbian-feminist viewpoint as expressed by Moraga. In the middle, we have Cisneros' treatment of woman as modern heterosexual who is trying to find the balance between the old and the new with respect to sexuality, relationships with men, and the Mexican-American culture. And finally, we have the traditional view of women as expressed by Islas, the only male author of the three. In general, for example, with respect to sexuality, it is fair to say that the lesbian Moraga rejects sex with men in favor of sex with women, not because she hates men but because she loves women. The women in Cisneros are heterosexual, but they express various complaints about heterosexuality. And the women in Islas are fully accepting of not only their

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ome who sold nachos at the mall, still waiting for him to come back to Harlingen, marry her, and buy that three-piece bedroom set on layaway. Dream on, right? . . . But you know how men are. Unless you're washing their feet and drying them with your hair, they just can't take it. I mean it. And Carmen was a take-it-or-leave-it type of woman. If you don't like it, there's the door. Like that. She was something (Cisneros 61). Here we have three responses to men's abusive exploitation. First, there is the reaction of the "high school honey"; she is a complete fool for men, learning nothing from her traumas. Second, there is Carmen, who refuses to take abuse. And third, there is the narrator, who takes a detached, comic, appreciative stance. Carmen would seem to be an exception to the standard Cisneros female character, but is she, after all? Isn't she still a character trapped in a world of men's abusiveness and simply responding to it just as much as the other women? She does not set her own agenda in life, as Moraga does, but is still a passive creature reacting to what men do or don't do. In addition, is it an improvement, as Cisneros suggests, when a woman such as Carmen abuses men instead of being abused herself? Even Moraga, w
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Approximate Word count = 2817
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page)

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