Gender

Rosario Castellanos play made a couple of gender points in her play "The Eternal Feminine". Every act had a clear point to me in which gender could be illustrated. My favorite scene of the whole play was the end of the play in Act 3. Act Three consisted of the scenes where the dress owner gave her numerous of wigs to try on since she decided that her hair was not going to be finished because of the blackout and all the interruptions she had been having at the shop. With each wig that Lupita tried on she would try on, you could say she had a vision or dream about what the wig stood for. She took on different personalities that came to her when she tried the different wigs on. With each wig, Lupita had visions of being a single woman, a prostitute, a reporter, and a secret lover of another man.
The one that stood out to me the most was Lupita playing the role of secret lover when she tried on “The Soiled Flower” wig. With this particular wig, Lupita had a vision of her becoming a prostitute and having to sell her body on the street. She ran into a man Cinturita who seemed to be a pimp. This scene portrays gender to me because it seems as if they are always trying to portray the women as being weak and having to take orders for a man. Just like in numerous of ads we have seen in this class and all around the media, people are always trying to sell the woman body as an object and not a human being. Cinturita at first seemed nice to Lupita, but the way he talked down upon the other prostitute was outright demeaning. For him to call her a “slut” and yell at her the way he did was unacceptable. Men are believed to be the dominant figure in relationships and once again this scene proves it. The assumptions that women are helpless, fearful, and subjective and the men are strong and powerful are shown here in this scene. For a woman to sell there body is degrading, and for a man to encourage it and accept is disturbing. Cinturita called himself “protecting” them, but at the end of the day he was worried about his money then the protection of the ladies. When she placed “The Usurper” wig on she became the secret lover of a married man. She was looked at being naïve from her maid her knew all the things that were going to happen between her and her secret lover. The fact that she accepted being okay for not being important in his life and not being shown in public showed again how men try to take advantage of women. Not only was the husband being unfaithful to her but to his wife. In this case, it’s not just Lupita’s fault for standing up for herself, but the man’s for not taking responsibilities and being faithful. Men may think it is okay to cheat around and think nothing of it, but when a woman does it they are considered to be “hoes” or “sluts” for it. I am not sure what point Castellanos was trying to get across with these different scenes in this act, but maybe to show how some women feel or go through everyday.