In the The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, by Julia Alvarez, she shows that women in the Dominican Republic have different roles and responsibility then in the United States. Men are expected to maintain a descent job and provide a stable life for his family. Men are also expected to not cheat on their wives, however today that is not the case. Women are expected to drop everything they have going for them to raise the kids and take care of the household chores. Women also are supposed to go to all the children's games or recitals and help out with homework. Men perceive women as just a figure and do not see what lies beneath the skin and are narrow-minded. Men also think that women cannot care for themselves and need a man figure to carry them throughout their life. Women perceive men as an athletic and stupid minded. Women also think that men are pigs because they always check out women when walking by. The difficulties of being a women in American today is that men want a specific type of look, so women today are getting surgery's to make themselves more appealing to the opposite sex. Some advantages of being a women today are we have the ability to compete with men in the professional field. Some stereotypes associated with being a man today is that they think they are all macho and are athletic. Some stereotypes associated with being a woman today is that they are very self-absorbed and only care about their appearance due to how the press and public portray them.
Based on Yolanda so far, she would have a strong opinion about the difficulties of being a women in the Dominican Republic. Yolanda would most likely say that she feels as if women are treated as a fragile object that could be easily broken. For example, Yolanda's Aunt's were afraid of her going outside of their "compound" and taking the nice car because she could get hurt and it is not safe for a women to go outside by themselves. She would also say, on these lines, that she needs to look and dress a specific way or else she would not be based on what women in Dominican Republic look like.
Upon reflection, I found your response very similar to my own. We both shed light on some of the common hardships of women in this era. In addition, we both talked about how Yolanda would view the roles of women in this era. However, you brought up an interesting point about Yolanda that I did not consider. I did not consider that Yolanda would be independent, as you mentioned. I saw her more as reliant on men at first, but then starting to dislike them as she became taken advantage of. Overall, I feel that our opinions are very similar.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with this response. when you stated about how men think that women cannot care for themselves i couldn't agree more. Women go through a long time without a man to carry them and look how far they get in life. Women can be extremely independent these days. I also agree with your thoughts on why its hard to be a women during this time period. Men want a specific type of look and its very sad to see that so many women go through plastic surgery to make them fit mens standards. Women should be confident with how they look because the right guy for them will love them for who they are, not someone they made themselves into
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