Borderland: La Frontera And The Women Warrior

These expectations increased when she was in the presence of “great power, [her] mother talking story” (20). In one particular situation, the narrator recalls her mother singing about Fa Mu Lan, the woman warrior. Although her mother expected her daughter to become a wife or a slave, the narrator had a different idea; she would “grow up a woman warrior” (20). As a young girl, she said that she “couldn’t tell where the stories left off and the dreams began” (19). This is the case in “White Tigers.” The narrator’s dream-state takes readers into the mind of a girl who attempts to please her mother and entire family by becoming a woman warrior. This is possibly an attempt to subside much of the harsh ridicule she receives from her mother due to cultural differences. Although this is a key factor in her early childhood, she learns to block out these criticisms as she grows older.

In “Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Transvestite in the New World” by Catalina de Erauso, a female-born transvestite conquers the Spanish World on her journey to disguise herself as a man and inflicts violence both on and off the battlefield. Catalina discovers her hidden role in society as she compares herself to her brothers advantage in life, as they are granted money and freedom in living their own lives. Erauso decides to take action of this act of inequality by forming a rebellion, as she pledges to threaten the social order.The gender roles allotted to both men and women in the Spanish world represent the significance of societal expectations in order to identify the importance of gender in determining one’s position in the social order in the Spanish World.

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston blurs fiction and reality using a poetic, singsong writing style, blending sentences together using sentence structure and diction. She also relies heavily on symbols to reveal inner conflict that she had while growing up Chinese American, trying to determine what was authentically Chinese and what was illusion.

Machismo, or male chauvinism, is a concept that characterizes many Latin American male behaviors, most importantly those associated with masculinity and pride. This concept, most likely introduced to New Spain by Spanish conquistadors who embodied these traits, was then adopted and integrated as a part of Mexican culture going forward. Because of male masculinity prevailing over feminine traits during the 17th century, misogyny and the oppression of women became a norm in Mexican culture. Struggling to be valued in Mexico, women turned to literature and art to voice their opinions and expose the machismo in Mexican culture. Through literature and art, is where feminism in Mexico arose and is continually strengthen in. This paper will discuss the ways in which Mexican feminist literature and art over time have exposed and challenged machismo, misogyny, and the Mexican patriarchy since the Spanish Conquest.

Sexuality and spirituality thrives as other topics in which Anzaldua combines genres. In this instance she combines history and autobiography. Again this gives a more humane look at history. However, this use is more distinctly personal whereas the previous combination of history and poetry provided a more universal personal approach. This talks about Anzaldúa’s part in history. Anzaldúa writes, “Being lesbian and raised Catholic, I was indoctrinated as straight, I made the choice to be queer (for some it is genetically inherent)” (41). This line is found in a section dealing with homophobia that resides heavily in the cultures she identifies with. While this phobia exists in the culture at large and is recorded as such, Anzaldúa provides a personal account as an example.

Mexican women are still suffering from discrimination, violence, inequality and disparity. Mexican society in general has been classified, as a male-dominated society, in which women did not have the same rights as men and they are being branded by their sex. Women in Mexico are still fighting hard to be appropriate in their own country and gain their basic human rights, their right to belong, their right to live and their right to be treated with dignity. In this essay I will explore some of the difficulties and issues Mexican women had and still have to deal with within their daily life.

Anzaldua identifies as a part of an emerging new mestiza consciousness and community, which strives to move beyond simple dualistic thinking and endeavors to “act and not react” This important contradiction lies at the heart of Anzaldua’s analysis. “From this racial, ideological, cultural, and biological cross-pollicization, an ‘alien’ consciousness is presently in the making — a new mestiza consciousness, una conciencia de mujer. It is a consciousness of the Borderlands.” (Anzaldua, 1987, 420). Anzaldua’s proposition of the new consciousness mediates social relations, revolutionary social change, and its wider relevance to feminist theory through discussions of the Borderlands and its implications for ‘identity.’

Maxine Hong Kingston’s “The Woman Warrior” is novel composed of myths and memoirs that have shaped her life. Her mother’s talk-stories about her no name aunt, her own interpretation of Fa Mu Lan, the stories of ghosts in doom rooms and American culture have been the basis of her learning. She learned morals, truths, and principals that would be the basis of her individuality.

Throughout the novel The Woman Warrior, by Maxine Hong Kingston, the past is incorporated into the present through talk-stories combined into each chapter. Kingston uses talk-stories, to examine the intermingling of Chinese myths and lived experiences. These stories influence the life of the narrator as the past is constantly spoken about from the time she is young until the novel ends and she becomes an adult. Kingston incorporates two cultures. She is not a direct recipient of Chinese culture, but she has her own sense of talk-story, that she learns from her mother, which tells the old Chinese stories with a sense of myth, in a new American way. This is a way of weaving two cultures together, bringing the Chinese past into her present American life.

The theme of “voiceless woman” throughout the book “the woman warrior” is of great importance. Maxine Kingston narrates several stories in which gives clear examples on how woman in her family are diminished and silenced by Chinese culture. The author not only provides a voice for herself but also for other women in her family and in her community that did not had the opportunity to speak out and tell their stories.

What I'm going to talk about is four major themes from the book, Borderlands La Frontera by Gloria Anzaldúa. The four major themes I chose to talk about are first, how you shouldn’t be ashamed of yourself, then how Anzaldúa shows deviant behavior throughout the book, also, how she found herself through poetry, and lastly, America’s melting pot.

In The Woman Warrior, Maxine Hong Kingston crafts a fictitious memoir of her girlhood among ghosts. The book’s classification as a memoir incited significant debate, and the authenticity of her representation of Chinese American culture was contested by Asian American scholars and authors. The Woman Warrior is ingenuitive in its manipulation of the autobiographical genre. Kingston integrates the value of storytelling in her memoir and relates it to dominant themes about silence, cultural authenticity, and the cultivation of identity. Throughout her work, Kingston reaches a variety of conclusions about the stories her mother told her by writing interpretations of her mother, Brave Orchid’s, “talk-story”. Brave Orchid’s talk-story is a form

The purpose of this paper is to analyze to main questions. The first part of the paper will define transnational feminism and identify key factors within a transnational perspective. Another part will be discussing some transnational feminist critiques of mainstream “white/Western” feminism and will also give ideas that a transnational feminist would suggest in order to make positive changes for women. The second part of the paper will choose two concepts to define, as well as discuss how they relate to one another from a transnational perspective. In addition, the relation of how they related to gender or affect the political, social, and/or economic status of women in the world will be analyzed.

The idea of “Feminism” is seen in the eyes of many as “women who want to be more masculine” whenever its true meaning is just women who want equality and the same respect and opportunities that men have. This belief has been built up over time through many different perspectives which is why it had turned into the negative idea of what it is. This idea of “Feminism” affected the social hierarchy and system where people were categorized based upon their sex and the social impact it made created and resolved multiple social issues. The idea of “Feminism” impacted the interactions between men and women and the morals of society and through this created power in women as well introduce a long needed new peace amongst the sexes.

Westfahl (2005) recalca la importancia de la ciencia ficción para el movimiento feminista, pues une la teoría