Contemporary Connections- Eva Luna and the Power Gap Between Men and Women

 Text in blue taken from consumerstar.org: http://www.consumerstar.org/resources/pdf/Gender_4.pdf

Throughout the novel men are shown to have power over women. Isabel Allende wrote the novel to take place in the nineteen thirties and forties, and during this time women relied on men. They were viewed as sexual objects, and according to the study “women have come a long way,” but both men and women view men as the dominant gender.

 

“In his eyes, I would never be independent. Huberto had thought that way since he could think at all” p. 233

 “At work I earn more than women in the same job function and receive more opportunities
for advancement than my women colleagues.”

Men have always had power over women and it clearly still exists today in the workforce, home and other aspects of society.

“His submissiveness lasted until one winter night when Lukas Carté felt the mood coming over him to use the red boots. The boys were old enough to guess what that oppressive atmosphere meant, those strained looks, the silence heavy with portents. As he always did,  Carté ordered the children to leave them, to take Katharina and go to their room and not come out for any reason.  Before they left, Jochen and Rolf glimpsed the terror in their mother’s eyes, and saw her shivering.” P. 39

“I am unlikely to be the target of sexual harassment at work, sexually motivated attacks in public or domestic violence at home. As such, my personal safety is not a daily concern for me, as it is for many women. “

Rolf’s mother was mentally tortured, she was forced to walk around her house in red high heels and nothing else.  In fear she answered to Carte’s wishes. He treated her more like an object than a human being. In today's society women are still subjected towards objectification sexual harassment even though the gender gap has  “come along way."