Sandra Cisneros' Mango Street house highlights a number of disparities between the sexes, both in the family environment and in the place of work, for women of the 60s and 70s. From the beginning of the book, Esperanza realizes that men and women live in "separate worlds" and that women are almost powerless in her society. The culture of this era, in which women were expected to be submissive, was particularly prevalent in poor neighborhoods, such as the predominantly Spanish street of Esperanza. Women endured the fatigue of having to get up so early, being trapped in their own homes, and enduring the mental and physical abuse their husbands inflicted on them. Women were even economically tied to men, not just because they earned much less. In 1970, for example, the proportion of women's earnings to men's earnings was 54.8%, but because they often needed their father's or husband's signature to obtain credit or buy larger items. All of these issues allude to the fact that women of Esperanza's time had little to no freedom and had to rely on the male figures in their lives, which often ended in disaster. The issue of gender roles and power dynamics between men and women in the 1960s and 1970s is raised in vignette 40, “Linoleum Roses.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In this vignette, Sally, who is still in college might I add, marries a man to escape her father's tyranny and abuse. Sally does indeed free herself from her father, but then finds herself trapped in the graces of another man. In the book, Esperanza describes Sally's situation as follows: "He won't let her talk on the phone. And he doesn't let her look out the window. And he doesn't like his friends, so no one can visit him unless he works. She stays at home because she is afraid to go out without his permission.” We've seen this happen to so many other women in the book, including Esperanza and Rafaela's great-grandmother. Women were not allowed to pursue what they wanted in life because of the ridiculous power men had over them. To escape from a man, she had to be chained by another man. Sally was so manipulated and abused in this situation that she didn't even want to come out for fear of what her husband would do. On the other hand, Sally's husband isolated her from the rest of society so that she belonged only to him. Looking out the window is the last hope and last pleasure for many of the trapped women of Mango Street, but Sally's husband denies her even that. Regarding the issue of men with their bossy nature and patriarchal work and family environment, I think as if every woman has experienced losses in this area. It has been deeply ingrained in American society for hundreds of years that men generally hold authority. I completely agree with Cisneros' perspective on this issue and how she portrays it in the story through each woman in the Mango Street narrative. Because the treatment of women throughout history is not necessarily a subject that can be debated. It happened, it happens again, it’s as simple as that. The images Cisneros created of women looking out the window, unable to leave the walls of their home, completely capture the aspects that accompany institutionalized gender roles. In vignette 31, Esperanza describes..