What Cisneros Thinks

      Right now in the world, there is lots of sexism and debate on how teenage boys and girls should be raised. In the book The House on Mango Street written by Sandra Cisneros, there are many instances of sexism. It seems as if Cisneros thinks teenage boys and girls should be raised differently and shows this through many vignettes like "Alicia Who Sees Mice", and "What Sally Said".
      "In Alicia Who Sees Mice", Cisneros talks about the responsibilities of teenage girls and seems to convey the idea that they should be raised differently. This is exemplified when she she writes,

"Alicia, whose mama died, is sorry there is no one older to rise and make the lunchbox tortillas. Alicia, who inherited her mama's rolling pin and sleepiness, is young and smart and studies for the first time at the university...is a good girl, my friend, studies all night and sees the mice, the ones her father says do not exist. Is afraid of nothing except four-legged fur. And fathers" (pg.31). 

Since Alicia is a girl she inherited all the responsibilities that her mom had. The responsibilities didn't go to the boy, they went to the girl. I think Cisneros is trying to say that girls should be raised to go to school rather than staying at home and having to cook. Since Alicia has all these responsibilities, she does not have a lot of time to study or do her schoolwork. Alicia probably tried to devote more of her time to studying, but her father might have got mad at her and made her do her chores. This is why Cisneros writes thats Alicia is afraid of fathers. Cisneros thinks that girls should have less responsibilities at home and have more freedom in choosing what they want to do.
      Another Vignette that shows what Cisneros thinks about raising teenage boys and girls is "What Sally Said". In this Vignette it talks about the horrible things that Sally's dad did to her because of Sally's beauty. Cisneros might think that girls should be raised differently because of their beauty. An example is this is when she writes,

 "A girl that big, a girl who comes in with her pretty face all beaten and black can't be falling off the stairs. He never hits me hard.  Until one day Sally's father catches her talking to a boy and the next day she doesn't come to school. And the next. Until the way Sally tells it, he just went crazy, he forgot he was her father between the buckle and the belt. You're not my daughter, you're not my daughter. And then broke into his hands.

Cisneros thinks that because girls are beautiful, parents need to raise them differently so that boys can't take advantage of them. Some parents, like Sally's, are very harsh because of her beauty. There are no Vignettes in this novel that talk about how beautiful boys are. It only talks about how beautiful girls are either beaten or locked up in a room. Since Sally was very beautiful and was talking to a boy, her father got really mad and started to beat her. If Sally was a boy and was caught talking to a girl, her father might have not done anything. I think that Cisneros is trying to say that in the sense of beauty, parents need to be stricter in raising girls and less strict in raising boys.
      In conclusion, it seems as if Cisneros has a strong sense in raising teenage boys and girls differently. She thinks that girls should be raised differently because of their beauty and should have more freedom in choosing what they want to do. In raising teenage boys, Cisneros probably thinks that parents should not worry about their beauty all the time. This is all very similar to the real world and how sexism is a big part of determining how teenage boys and girls are raised.