Like Water For Chocolate Gender Roles

Visualize your daughter, mother, friend, or even yourself, being dismissed as being a leader and making change all because you're a woman and you aren’t supposed to lead, you're supposed to follow. This is a reality women live in every single day, they’re not allowed to voice their opinion or even have one when it comes to leadership, sexual desires, or women's house roles. Society views and forces women to be housewives, whose goal in life is to be a mother and care for their children, they cannot have sexual desires only men are allowed to have any, and they are to never voice their opinion if it goes against a man. In the novel, Like Water for Chocolate the female characters challenge the gender norms and expectations that are forced on

In the novel Like Water for Chocolate, Gertrudis comes back home after she been away for some time where she is then told that her mother has passed away, she then informs her sisters that she is now a general in the revolutionary army and she did it all to show Mama Elena that she could do something with her life, “She felt real grief when Tita informed her of her mother’s death. She had come back with the intention of showing Mama Elena how she had triumphed in life. She was a general in the revolutionary army” (178). Although Mama Elena disowned Gertrudis, Gertrudis still felt grief and love towards her mother, Gertrudis wanted to show how she is a respected leader to men and women and no longer a “laughable disappointment” to her family. Gertrudis took this leadership role as an opportunity to be respected because she did not have that with her family and Gertrudis is also on the opposing side where she was giving the orders to men and not receiving them. Esquivel describes Gertrudis’ leadership role as powerful when Tita is narrating, “Leadership was in her blood, and once she joined the army, she began a rapid ascent through powerful positions until she arrived at the top; moreover, she was coming back happily married to Juan”(179). Gertrudis is strong and respected not only by herself and others around her but also by her husband who sees her as an equal and does not be little to her or give her orders and roles to