Random Family

This is a pervasive and consistent theme in LeBlanc’s narrative. Jessica, acutely aware of a sexual economy which values her good looks and voluptuous body, begins to use the things that gender norms have defined as assets in order to secure her heart’s dearest ambition: true love. However, persistent misogyny and sexist abuse dog her path, as the men around her are sanctioned—by gender and sexual norms and the acquiescence of the entire community to those norms–to act as sexual agents who use violence, power, and control to both limit and define the worth of women, who are deemed sexual objects. Jessica’s experience is common to all of the women around her, including Lourdes and Coco, most significantly. Almost every woman in the story undergoes sexual abuse as a young child, and the subsequent absence of social, cultural, and psychological support that could adequately address the trauma of sexual violence. This, too, is a product of a sexual economy that objectifies the bodies of women while simultaneously sanctioning and ignoring the abuse of men.