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In Alice’s “everyday� life many of her thoughts and observations about gender and power are influenced by her mother, neighbor and schoolmates/best friend. Her mother teaches her to be a strong, independent woman. This is shown in examples from the film when Alice is given the wrong change. Her mother gets angry at this incident and tells Alice that she needs to be careful. Another incident was when she fought back to the “kung foo� boy at school. Alice was immediately praised for her response. From these occurrences we might make the assumption that women are weaker and are generally treated in these ways yet Alice’s mother is trying to teach Alice to go against these norms. Alice has a single mother which is one reason Alice is being taught this advice seeing how her mother has to be strong and independent due to her situation. Her and her mother’s relationship is where some of Alice’s frustration is built upon. She is confused whether or not she is an adult as shown in their argument over doing the dishes.

Her mother’s friend/neighbor is another character that deeply affects Alice’s thinking. She teaches Alice that beauty is basically everything, and that women tend to need men, without them they are an emotional wreck. This is displayed through the neighbor lady’s actions following her break up. Even Alice’s classmates influence her both showing her that beauty is necessary and that boys are more dominant. In the classroom setting the # 9 boys overpowered the class and got to choose which homework question and Alice’s best friend stopped being her friend due to her status/beauty. Alice has frustration due to her limitation of status. Financially her family cannot afford to buy her a sleeping bag which worsens her classmates and best friend opinions about her. To them money and beauty go hand in hand because once they found out that she did not have a sleeping bag they added the comment “I mean look at you, your ugly�.