Read the excerpt below from "At the Hearth" by Laura Esquivel and answer the question that follows.

And so, I was mortified to realize that my daughter wasn't paying attention. Instead, she was staring blankly at cartoons, forsaking the hypnotic power of fire for that of the television; the memory of the tribe, for commercials. I was so shocked, I couldn't speak! Thousands of questions robbed me of my sleep. What had happened? Where had I gone wrong? What kind of society had we created? What had we women achieved by leaving the home? Yes, we had won rights that belonged to us and we had earned recognition for our intellectual activity and a better place in the world, but with great sadness I was forced to accept that none of the revolutions we participated in had managed to create a proper system for the creation of the New Man.

What does this excerpt reveal about gender roles?

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Lily West

29 March, 16:14

Read the excerpt below from "At the Hearth" by Laura Esquivel and answer the question that follows.

And so, I was mortified to realize that my daughter wasn't paying attention. Instead, she was staring blankly at cartoons, forsaking the hypnotic power of fire for that of the television; the memory of the tribe, for commercials. I was so shocked, I couldn't speak! Thousands of questions robbed me of my sleep. What had happened? Where had I gone wrong? What kind of society had we created? What had we women achieved by leaving the home? Yes, we had won rights that belonged to us and we had earned recognition for our intellectual activity and a better place in the world, but with great sadness I was forced to accept that none of the revolutions we participated in had managed to create a proper system for the creation of the New Man.

What does this excerpt reveal about gender roles?

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Sylvia Ryan · Answer 1

That instead of granting freedom to a gender that had long been oppressed, modern women have bought that freedom with the destruction of something very dear to mothers.

Being a mother.

Women had not made things better for themselves: they had robbed Peter to pay Paul. They did wonderful things outside the home, but they had given up what they had inside the home.