Roles and Expectations for Women

All of the stories' protagonists are female, and one of the defining themes in the collection involves questioning the traditional roles and societal expectations of women. This theme gives the book a decidedly feminist slant, as the characters are often rebelling against these expectations, or at least wishing they could.

The narrator of “Show Them a Good Time worked as an escort and acted in pornography while living in the city, and while she is not bothered by having done so, she is shamed by another employee at the garage who labels her activities “Whoring around” (23). The narrator expresses the opinion that “Poverty was only for women who didn't know how to make slight social improvements” (10). While this statement underplays the fact that, for her, this meant engaging in sex work, her point is that women can always find ways to profit...