Theme Of Sexism In Literature

What is America? This question is posed all throughout history and even in books. In the average history book America is depicted as this place where everything is “happy go lucky”. But there are many underlying factors such as racism and sexism. Racism is defined as prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one's own race is superior. Sexism is defined as prejudice, stereotyping, or discrimination, typically against women, on the basis of sex. The three books that will be talked about throughout this paper will be The Awakening, Black Boy and The House on Mango Street.
In the autobiography Black Boy by Richard Wright there is a common theme of racism because Wright grew
Sexism worked to affect the characters through set gender roles being instilled within the children at an early age and then being reinforced throughout their lives as they grew into adulthood. An example of this can be seen in the chapter of the book titled Hips, where Esperanza, her younger sister Nenny, and her friends are chatting about what uses women have for their hips, why they are important to the female body and how one should go about practicing for when they appear, as they are playing jump rope with each other (Cisneros 49-52). The contrast between the youthful action of jumping rope and the discussion of how each girl thinks they will use their hips in the future shows how sexism finds a foothold in the children of the community and begins its influence. One of the girls in the group, Rachel, states that she believes hips are good for holding babies while cooking (Cisneros 49). Rachel’s perception of how a woman should use her hips is a clear reflection of how the gender roles of her society will most likely influence how she will use hers in the future.This also shows how her setting or her surrounding influence her train of thought. In the chapter Alice Sees Mice Alice wants to go to school and get her education and when her father finds out he disapproves and says “Anyway, a woman's place is sleeping so she can wake up early with the tortilla star (Cisneros 78-79). " This is her father stereotyping women by saying that they are only meant to cook, clean, and raise the children and nothing