Gender Roles In Saunders's Tent City

Would gender roles, that are seen time and time again in families and communities, have any weight in a populace of homeless people? In Saunders’s “Tent City,” the Principal Researcher, or PR, observes firsthand the traits used by those he is studying. Survival is the priority for the inhabitants of the encampment in Fresno, California. Thus, gender roles acclimate to what is necessary to live. Women often struggle in places where the power automatically goes to the strongest. I worked at a restaurant for almost two years, and what I observed was a kitchen staff that was predominantly male. The women would leave if they could not handle the intensity required. Others adapted. Conversely, the servers were predominantly female. They outperformed their male counterparts, forcing the men to adapt as well. Saunders’s description of the first person the PR approaches strays away from biological sex. The illustration is created by “a series of sun-darkened red-and-purple rounded structures, like rosy cheeks, but located in places on her face where cheeks would not normally be found” (300). He does not express in detail that this is a woman besides the mention of “rosy cheeks”.
This woman, Wanda, gives the PR an introduction to the dynamic traits shared by many in the camp. She is most noteworthy for when the PR confirms that he is …show more content…
The statement is coming from a woman. A considerable amount of people do not even believe male rape occurs at all from women—presumably because it is so rare. The Hathor Legacy states: “93.7 percent of rape perpetrators are male and 6.3 percent are female” (Greenberg, Bruess and Haffner). This brings to mind the well-known phrase “Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power” as it depicts her purpose for making that claim. Wanda’s spontaneous comment (which quite likely was not meant to be taken seriously), asserted her dominance