Women In The House On Mango Street

As Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani activist for females, once said, “I raise up my voice - not so I can shout but so that those without a voice can be heard…we cannot succeed when half of us are held back.” Malala is speaking for young females, giving them a voice that they may not have. She is showing how being a female should be empowering, and women should not be held back. In The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros speaks of a similar idea. As Malala says, Cisneros also shows how being a woman can be empowering; however, Cisneros also shows how being a woman raised in a marginalized community can have negative mental and physical effects. Through countless stories and the motif of women sitting by windows, Cisneros shows how draining …show more content…
She finally realizes such when she is reflecting on what her sister and mother have said about her future, stating, “My mother says when I get older my dusty hair will settle and my blouse will learn to stay clean, but I have decided not to grow up tame like the others who lay their necks on the threshold waiting for the ball and chain” (Cisneros 88). Esperanza now understands she will end up just like the women in windows if she conforms to the expectations placed on her by her gender. This thought motivates her to get up and away from this marginalized community so she can be successful in life and finally be able to truly call her home the place where she belongs. As she is thinking about her new, inspiring future and how those from her community will react, she says, “They will not know I have gone away to come back. For the ones I left behind. For the ones who cannot out” (Cisneros 110). Once Esperanza leaves, she says she will come back for those women in the windows she left behind in her community. This is Esperanza’s statement of intent. It is her desire to become successful, then return to her roots and prove there is something more than the turmoil of being a woman in their isolated