Throughout the development of this book, many themes and ideas about the book develop to help explain the characters and why they made the decisions they made. One of the aspects I want to focus on is in the difference in gender treatment thought the book. In many instances, men and women are treated differently, on one hand, some woman are portrayed only as sexual objects with no future just like Ybon. On the other hand, men are portrayed as macho for sleeping with women, and It is clear that one’s identity back in those days was connected to one’s gender and so I argue that even though the relationships between opposite genders seem more positive in the book, the same gender relationships and serotype are more prevalent throughout the book …show more content…
With that being said there are basically standards that are set stereotypes in the culture on how men were supposed to look and act towards women. Looking at Oscar, he is overweight and nerdy, and this was frowned upon in that day and age and as a result, he could not talk to women- some would even say to him that he is not a Dominican. This questioned both his gender and culture since he is clearly not living up to the stereotype of how Dominican men looked like. We see how Oscar is also nervous about how he was going to die a virgin, and this is emphasized by Lola who says to him “you’re going to die a virgin unless you start changing” (Diaz, 150). With this added pressure from his own sister it can be said that whilst Lola did not get along with her mother, she was also very worried about her brother who seems not to be acting or looking the way a usual Dominican man would look. Through the words “had no knack for music or business or dance, no hustle, no rap, no G. And most damning of all: no looks” (Diaz, 39) we see Oscar possesses none of these qualities and so there doesn’t seem to be a lot of respect going his way in general. So, because of the culture, he is growing up in, there are certain expectations for his ability to be involved in relationships and sometimes not even relationships, but just sexual interactions. Early in the book, he dates two girls when he is still in elementary school and after they found out about each other his love life comes all downhill from that, thus ending his brief foray into being a ladies’