The Logic Of Cheating On Me Analysis

Josie Mendez-Negrete’s novel, Las Hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed, is a very disturbing tale about brutal domestic abuse and incest.  Negrete’s novel is an autobiography regarding experiences of incest in a working-class Mexican American family.  It is Josie Mendez-Negrete’s story of how she, her siblings, and her mother survived years of violence and sexual abuse at the hands of her father.  “Las Hijas de Juan" is told chronologically, from the time Mendez-Negrete was a child until she was a young adult trying, along with the rest of her family, to come to terms with her father 's brutal legacy. It is a upsetting story of abuse and shame compounded by cultural and linguistic isolation and a system of patriarchy that devalues the

`In conclusion, If you know William Shakespeare you know the play “ The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet”, a tragic story that proves that love makes teens do crazy things. I have found evidence that teens make lots of risky discussions. Also this concludes some of the beliefs that people have on why teens take so many

The story “Woman Hollering Creek" by Sandra Cisneros describes the lives of Mexicans in a Chicago neighborhood. She depicts the life that women endure as Latino wives through her portrayal of the protagonist, Cleofilas. For Cisneros being a Mexican-American has given her a chance to see life from two different cultures. In addition, Cisneros has written the story from a woman’s perspective, illustrating the types of conflicts many women face as Latino wives. This unique paradigm allows the reader to examine the events and characters using a feminist critical perspective.

According to Giger, “in 2000, 70% of Mexican-American families were married couple families” (Giger, 2008). Of that 70%, 21% were female-headed households (Giger, 2008). That is significant. For one thing, this shows how far they have come as a culture, to assert female dominance in a household.

hese women from the book “ Women Hollering Creek”, were abused and taken advantage of their own men. Sandra Cisneros explores the stories “Never marry a mexican”, Woman Hollering Creek”, and “One holy night”. The women in this stories made a mistake by being with the wrong men in their life. They became careless when they met their own men. These girls have lost their respect for themselves. They have destroyed their own self, for the guy who never really loves them. No one stood up for their rights as a woman. Love and hate made these women vulnerable.

Espiritu’s interviews with almost one hundred Filipino Americans searches how gender factors into minority understandings of whiteness and their own personal, cultural identity. Filipino immigrant families stress cultural superiority over white Americans by declaring that their daughters have higher moral standards. They believe they have greater values when it comes to family commitment and sexuality. Also, Filipinos felt their culture was superior to white American culture because their lives revolved around their close-knit families while white families were seen as detached or individualistic. The responsibility for maintaining family ties and cultural traditions was put on Filipino women, which usually falls on women of all cultures. Carrying out responsibility reinforces patriarchy among Filipinos. Nearly all cultures blend” proper” femininity with sexual

What is ironic is that although the Spanish felt that Mexico’s population had to be converted because they were uncivilized and inferior, "mestizaje, the product of racial interbreeding with Indian, black, and mixed-blood women," took place. As a result, Mexicans share a rich mestizo cultural heritage of Spanish, Indian, and African origins. By raping the uncivilized Other, the Spaniards were in turn making themselves uncivilized. Those women represented nothing more but the medium through which the Spanish could vent their sexual desires. This was a major problem that Mexican women had to encounter.

For the next part of my research, I consulted some magazines that I had around my house. I found an article in the January 2004 issue of Cosmopolitan that was helpful in explaining one of the theories on why men cheat. According to Shirley Glass, PhD, many men who cheat come from chauvinistic cultures or families where their fathers cheated. Another point brought up by Glass in this article is that men feel that as long as they do not love the other woman, that it is simply a physical thing, then they are not really cheating (Koli). I guess what Glass is saying is that cheating, like abuse or alcoholism, can be a cycle that runs in families. If a man grows up watching his father cheat on his mother, then he is being taught that it is an acceptable practice. Also, men feel that if they do not break their emotional promise to their significant other, then they are not doing anything wrong. While I think the first one is understandable and a valid point, I feel the second is yet another excuse men use to justify an unjustifiable action.

I can also feel the rigid gender roles and norms in the Mexican American culture. In Movimientos de rebeldia y las culturas que traicionan, Anzaldua mentions that the Mexican culture barely accepts deviant behaviors. Their culture expects women to be commitment to men and if they are not, they are labeled as a selfish. Women are valued as a wife and mother, and “women are made to feel total failures if they don’t marry and have children.” Because of fear of being unaccepted and abandoned by their own culture, “some conform to the values of the culture, push the unacceptable parts into the shadows.” The Mexican women fight for women’s rights in their mother culture first, before they fight against the racism or sexism in white dominant culture.

In the Woman Hollering Creek, Sandra Cisneros makes use of several short stories to expose the Mexican culture destined gender roles inequalities against women. From an utterly young age, most Mexican girls are endangered to take the household responsibilities as their core duty. Once they reach adolescence, they imperiled to think about marriage as the unrivaled way for them to leave their parent's support. I argue that the Mexican culture through the medium of tradition and media are assembling a society in which woman, from the moment they are born, bear a life of parental and marital submission.

Within the four speaker, Jesse, Elia, and Eduardo mention that their family had to migrate from Mexico to the United State for a better life. Elia and Eduardo were even born in Mexico therefore had to adapt to a different life style. I was able to relate this to the context because most of them came from Mexico origin. Elia and Kathleen mention that they grew up in a Catholic religion. Zuniga (2011) explains how Spanish heritage influences most Latinos to be Roman Catholics (p.200). This related to Elia and Kathleen because due to their family’s Spanish heritage they were involve in the Catholic religion. Elia mentioned how in her family, her father always had the last word which exhibit male supremacy including strict gender roles. According to Zuniga (2011), Latino families have been known for exhibiting male supremacy and strict gender roles (p.208). For example, in Ela’s family she mentioned that women had to do what men said, giving men more power. Between her brothers and sisters there were many differences. Her brothers would be able to do many things that the girls could not and they would be able to get away with anything. Elia’s family took her divorce very hard and when she started dating again, but with her brother situation her parents did not say much. I was able to relate this the the strict gender roles that context mention because there was gender

The story illustrates the overlapping influences of women’s status and roles in Mexican culture, and the social institutions of family, religion, economics, education, and politics. In addition, issues of physical and mental/emotional health, social deviance and crime, and social and personal identity are

While patriarchy deals with the systemic structure of a given society, machismo, on the other hand, focuses on the dominant portrayal of men as they interact with the opposite sex and requires a more violent and aggressive response when the man believes he, or his masculine pride, was disrespected (Jeffries IV 2007). Because of its aggressive and prideful nature, it was not surprising to see that machismo, just as with patriarchy, advocates for the belief that women should be possessed and controlled, as they are simply viewed as their property. It is because of this possessive and controlling nature that led to George responding violently when Zack revealed that he was only using George’s daughter for sex. This aggressive and violent response to the disrespect of him and his daughter clearly shows that George still embodies the machismo attitude that is stereotypically associated with Latino men. Clearly, George values respect and expects respect; therefore, when Zack violated his order to stay away from his daughter, George felt the need to respond aggressively to show that he’s still the “man” with authority. However, the ultimate form of disrespect that was committed was when Carmen, George’s

After her mother’s lightly taken remark, the narrator, Clemencia, decides to take the advice, given her background experience and knowledge of the family’s history, and only seeks white, married men, instead of single men of color. The reason she seeks married men is due to the history of cheating in the family, which, Clemencia herself admits she became guilty of after this decision. In her narrative, she mentions, “Borrowed. That’s how I’ve had my men.” (Cisneros 69) to imply she will not be categorized into the group of women that are cheated on; and, instead, conforms to the group that men cheat with. In this way, Clemencia ensures not only the fact that she will never marry a Mexican man, but also the fact that she will never marry at all. She claims marriage has failed her, and has brought great disappointment to her, to the extent she refuses it entirely. She seals her case by saying that it is “better to not marry than live lie” (Cisneros

In Mexico, men and women are equal in the eyes of the law. However, the man is head of the family. Mexicans use two types of cultural representations to separate the male and female gender roles. The male role is defined by machismo, which is described as violence, power, aggressiveness, and assertive behaviors in sexual situations. For the female role, Mexicans use the Virgin of Guadalupe as an icon. This virgin represents the suffering and sacrifice that women have to make daily for their families. She also represents the submissive, but virtuous woman that Mexican women strive to be. While some still follows these gender roles, the cultural is transforming with urbanization and the roles are shifting (“Mexico”, n.d.)