How did Janie Starks and Sandra Cisneros gender affect their lives?

Their Eyes Were Watching God

[Nanny to Janie]: "Don’t tell me you done got knocked up already, less see – dis Saturday it’s two month and two weeks."

"No’m, Ah don’t think so anyhow." Janie blushed a little.

"You ain’t got nothin’ to be shamed of, honey, youse uh married ‘oman. You got yo’ lawful husband same as Mis’ Washburn or anybody else!" (3.10-12)

She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman. (3.31)

Six months back he [Logan] had told her, "If Ah kin haul de wood heah and chop it fuh yuh, look lak you oughta be able tuh tote it inside. Mah fust wife never bothered me ‘bout choppin’ no wood nohow. She’d grab dat ax and sling chips lak uh man. You done been spoilt rotten."

So Janie had told him, "Ah’m just as stiff as you is stout. If you can stand not to chop and tote wood Ah reckon you can stand not to git no dinner. ‘Scuse mah freezolity, Mist’ Killicks, but Ah don’t mean to chop de first chip." (4.1-2)

Janie quickly found out that no matter her dreams, the fact she was a woman would influence her life and change the way she saw the world. Pregnancy was to be expected, as were the responsibilities of being a wife and mother before all else. Unfortunately, marriage didn't mean love....... nor did love make a marriage. As time goes by Janie asserts herself and makes clear that marriage should be an "equal" state with both spouses pulling their own weight......... this realization and declaration are in direct conflict with Logan's feeling that a wife should do her own chores, as well as her husband's. Regardless of recrimination....... she doesn't adhere to this outlook for long.