Real Women Have Curves Summary

Ana Garcia, the protagonist of the film Real Women Have Curves, is a perfect example of the contemporary Latina in the United States. She is an ideal illustration of the intersectionality between race, culture, gender, and class. When deciding what she would do for her future, Ana had to choose between her cultural values and mainstream expectations, between her Mexican heritage and her American mindset. After deciding to continue her education at Columbia University, Ana holds a feminist conference aiming to bring more attention to gender and race-based discrimination within the workplace and the unrealistic beauty standards set forth by society for women. These two issues are particularly prevalent in the United States and have widespread effects, therefore Ana would primarily focus on them. Both issues are applicable to Ana herself and could very easily have negative repercussions on her own life.

Common stereotypes about women in the Mexican-American culture include that women are uneducated, good housewives, and very fertile. Many parents still believe it’s the woman’s job to stay home and be the homemaker. The concept of gender, which is socially constructed, is reinforced since birth. (Sociology Lecture 08/24/2015) Ana was caught in the middle of gender politics. Her mother oppressed her daughter so she can become a grandmother. The film “Real Women Have Curves” deals with gender stereotypes and struggles of poor women living in East LA. Carmen was trying to have Ana chained to the notion of women being inferior to men. Carmen believed men to be superior, whereas Ana thought differently. However Ana strived to liberate herself from traditional cultural norms by pursuing her college education. Her mother’s negative influence only caused Ana to rebel.

For Play assignment #1 I was fortunate enough to experience a play by the name of “Lydia”, by Octavio Solis at the Blkbox Theater on June 16th 2016. This play portrays a plethora of themes throughout its performance. Perhaps, the most important theme shown throughout this play is family relationships and secrets and it is shown multiple times throughout this play. Other themes like homophobia, sex and the “Perfect American Family” were all seen throughout this play as well. However, they all had one vital connection which was the importance of family and secrecy. During Act 1 the Flores family welcomes Lydia into their home. Lydia is an undocumented woman who is there to take care of their daughter Ceci who is immobilized due to a car accident

A dystopian novel by Marie Lu, entitled, “Legend,” thrills audiences with a futuristic outlook of Los Angeles. The enthralling fifteen-year-olds, Day and June, are the main characters of the fictional story. Worlds apart, Day and June were raised in completely different lifestyles, each with their own family adversities, and individual ways of handling the situation. Day was born into a family of lower status, living in difficult conditions, persisting through daily life with resources shared between his mother and two brothers. On the contrary, June had the life of luxury, high in ranking and near the top in social status.

Throughout her article, Halberstam implicitly presents “butch” women as sharing a very specific characteristic: they are all cisgender women. In writing that butch women may harbour gender dysphoria, including a desire to be male (150), Halberstam ignores the reality that some butch women—namely, transgender butch women—are extremely dissociated with the desire to be male. It is highly likely that Halberstam did not even consider the existence of transgender butch women. If she had, it seems unlikely that she would have used the term “transgender butch” for anyone other than transgender butch women; the terminology is confusing.

Marisol is a young, assimilated hispanic woman in 1990’s New York who works a white collar job in Manhattan and lives in the Bronx. She doesn’t have family or loved ones living close to her except her friend and colleague, June. One night she has an unfortunate

A life in the city of Seguin, Texas was not as easy as Cleofilas, the protagonist of the story thought it would be. The author, Cisneros describes the life women went through as a Latino wife through Cleofilas. Luckily, Cisneros is a Mexican-American herself and had provided the opportunity to see what life is like from two window of the different cultures. Also, it allowed her to write the story from a woman’s point of view, painting a vision of the types of problems many women went through as a Latino housewife. This allows readers to analyze the characters and events using a feminist critical view. In the short story “Women Hollering Creek” Sandra Cineros portrays the theme of expectation versus reality not only through cleofilas’s thoughts but also through her marriage and television in order to display how the hardship of women in a patriarchal society can destroy a woman’s life.

Have you ever been in a situation where your family couldn’t provide that much for education? Are you influenced by anyone that’s older than you? Marjane lives in Iran, where most of the revolution war between Iran and Iraq occurs. There’s a lot of discrimination that happens there for equal rights towards women. Marjane comes from a really wealthy family and they took this women away from her family when she was little to be there maid. Esperanza lives in Chicago where she wanted to become a writer. There is six people living in one bedroom with one bathroom, Esperanza is poor so her parents can only afford a little. Even though Esperanza knows that she doesn’t have much she tries to make the best of it. In Persepolis and the House On Mango Street, both characters are influenced by someone older than them, they want to help their family, and they both have trouble in school.

Growing up, Natalie Suarez was the second child of three children to two loving parents. Although both her parents did not go to college, her father found his way into Ryan Co. A company in which he gives support in different areas of the company such as the payroll, accounting, and computer systems. Her mother stays at home and took care of their three children. With her and her younger sister being so close in

The second to youngest of the Grande children, Reyna, who is much more of a supportive friend than is a sister, would always boost everyone’s confidence in the memoir. Therefore, it gives confidence to everyone in order to succeed. Reyna was always the most baby in the memoir but Mago changed that and taught her how to be brave in the time of need. Reyna looks up to Mago the most because Mago is the only one who notices what she does. Carlos supports Reyna, but he’s also going on away trips to find a decent father role model. Mago once told Reyna that, “it doesn’t matter that there’s a distance between us now. That cord is there forever” (21). Mago wasn’t Reyna’s real mom; she tried her best to be the best she could be for not only Reyna but for Carlos and Betty too.

Rita's dad believed that a professional career would interfere with the girls being a wife and a mother, so he made the decision to not allow them to engage in studies that take part in a professional career. They couldn’t even enroll into an university. This was easy for Rita’s sister Paola because she was a painter like there mother.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Anna Gilman and “A Doll’s House” by Henrik Ibsen were both written in the nineteenth century. These stories were written in a time when women were under the male dominance. The story “The Yellow Wallpaper” and the play “A Doll’s House”, have similarities both portraying women who are in search of their identity and freedom while struggling emotionally. Both of these stories share feminist characteristics and belong to the same time period when women were considered oppressed by their husbands as well as society. Each writer examines the predicament of women during this time, with each female character having special circumstances that leads them to a moment of discovery.

“The sisters are doing some of it to themselves. For a variety of reasons, they're not aiming high enough. They're underestimating their abilities. They're doing too much housework and child care. They're compromising their career goals for partners and children -- even when such partners and children do not yet exist”.

The novel Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera brings to light many issues faced by immigrant women. The novel follows the young Makina in her quest to find and bring home her brother from what she imagines to be a mystical far away land. While the novel focuses on the challenges of immigration, the underlying meaning is much more complex. In Yuri Herrera’s Signs Preceding the End of the World, the common misconception that women cannot be the strong character in the novel is challenged. This is achieved by having the female protagonist, Makina, go on a quest to save her brother, be a vital individual in her community, and fight the misogynistic society she lives in.

Having already read the script for Craigslisted it had already given me an idea on what to expect during the play, but seeing it live was 10 times better. The play is about Maggie, or Lady Cha$tity, turning to Craigslist to solve her financial problems. The play took place in present day Kansas City, Missouri in Maggie's apartment. Maggie is a college student on a scholarship, but has to have part time jobs in order to pay her bills. She has two best friends, Haley and Robin, who sometimes have to lend her money in order for her to pay bills. Maggie, like every college student, is in a lot of stress when it comes to money. She gets on Craigslist to meet some of her clients who are lonely or have weird fetishes. Maggie tells herself that she won't get emotionally involved with her clients, but she ends up ditching her friends a lot because she got carried away and her schedule would get filled up with her clients instead. In the end, Maggie ends up in a problem because word has it she has been running prostitution from her apartment. She ends up realizing more about herself and who she is and what she values. So from the whole Craigslist situation she decides to give back to those students that are in her position and makes a scholarship by publishing a book about her ride throughout the Craigslist journey.