How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
But he was determined that at least his sons would be kept at a safe distance from her magic, so Jaime and Nicolás were sent to a Victorian English boarding school. […] Blanca's case was a different matter, because her father […] believed that her destiny was marriage and a brilliant life in society, where the ability to converse with the dead, if kept on a frivolous level, could be an asset. (4.94)
Esteban's limited notion of the roles of men and women in society lead him to envision very different futures for his daughter and his sons.
Quote #8
He maintained that magic, like cooking and religion, was a particularly feminine affair; for this reason, perhaps, he was able to feel a certain sympathy for the three Mora sisters, while he despised male spiritualists almost as much as he did priests. (4.95)
Magic, to Esteban, is appropriate for women but not for men, which is why he's so offended by his son Nicolás's attempts to become involved in his mother's clairvoyant activities. The author's position on whether or not magic is "feminine" is ambiguous – while women are the most talented practitioners of magic in this novel, we certainly see a number of male characters that are interested in magical and spiritual affairs.
Quote #9
She walked over to the mirror on the wardrobe and stared at herself for a long time. She took off her nightgown and, for the first time in her life looked at her body in detail, and as she did so she realized that it was because of all these changes that her friend had run away. She smiled a new, delicate smile, the smile of a woman. She put on her old clothes from the preceding summer, which were almost too small, wrapped herself in a shawl, and tiptoed out so as not to wake the rest of the family. (5.12)
Here the question of gender is attached to both the physical changes happening in Alba's body and the grown-up clothes she wears to indicate those changes.