(un)defining gender roles

As I mentioned in class, I want you folks to read A Step from Heaven through the lens of gender roles. In other words, I want you, as you read, to pay particular attention to how gender is constructed in the story. Here are a few questions to keep in mind as you continue to read:

How are the expectations of women different from men?
How do you think these expectations were put in place to begin with?
Are these gender roles, as you define them, positive or negative things? Or a bit of both?
How do you think gender roles are different across different cultures?

So, based on your readings so far (pp. 1-32), how can you go about answering these questions? What events or details in A Step from Heaven can you use to address or investigate these questions? I think there are a few key chapters, events and symbols that definitely begin to construct answers to the above questions. Can you find them? Or maybe you have found something that I or your classmates haven’t even noticed. Talk about it. So, for this blog, use the text to try and answer a few of the above questions. Look hard, quote the text, take some risks and think!