Sexism in TGoW is noticeable in many places, but what's interesting is that when most people think of sexism today, they think of men suppressing the rights and opportunities of women, and of women trying to break out of that suppression, or at the very least not benefiting or agreeing with that system. At least that's what I think of. But in TGoW the female characters, Ma in particular, seem perfectly accepting of the fact that in the social hierarchy, they are just above the children (as shown when the family gathers around the truck before leaving for California {and I don't remember which page that was on [yeah, I just put brackets in parentheses]}). The first place in the book where I saw Ma enforce that system was when Casy asked if he could travel with the family to California. "Ma looked to Tom to speak, because he was a man, but Tom did not speak. She let him have the chance that was his right, and then she said, 'Why, we'd be proud to have you'" (127). She has less say than her own son, and yet she seems perfectly fine with it. She also is hesitant on page 146 to let Casy take over salting the port because it's considered "women's work," as if it would be unseemly for a man to make food. Even manly-man's food, like pork that he killed with his own hands.
At first I wondered why Ma would enforce the hierarchy of men over women, especially since she seems so strong and independent. If I hadn't read those parts about her acting that way, I would have thought that she was one of those "I don't need no stinkin' man" types of characters. But then I got to the place where the Joads are camping by the roadside and the police officer went into the tent and threatened to run them in if they weren't gone the next day, and Ma used the hierarchy for protection. "'Mister,' she said, 'you got a tin button an' a gun. Where I come from. you keep your voice down.' She advanced on him with the skillet. He loosened the gun in the holster. 'Go ahead,' said Ma. 'Scarin' women. I'm thankful the men folks ain't here. They'd tear ya to pieces'" (291). Ma used the fact that they were mere women to try to guilt him, and then the protection of their men to threaten him.
Can anyone think of why else Ma would be alright with the sexism that surrounds her?
One reason could be because that's how she was raised. Since we don't have any information on how Ma was raised, we can probably assume that she also grew up on a farm in Oklahoma with her family. Sexism was a normal occurrence in the '30's still, even though women had been starting to get more rights through the beginning of the nineteenth century. Ma probably doesn't realize she's letting the men have dominance, or it doesn't bother her to let them have it because it's out of her own habit that she does. If that's how her mom acted when she was young, then that example showed her how to act when she got older.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with Mary-Kate. This sort of sexism was certainly the norm in the 30s, men were the dominant sex. It was how everyone was raised and no one really thought much of it. I imagine especially in rural towns they probably did not have a lot of exposure to the women's rights issues and activists of the time. In addition, even if Ma did not agree with these issues, she had been raised to believe that was right and if she protested she knew her words would fall on deaf ears. As you said though it seems that she does not care, and I think that that definitely has a lot to do with the time period.
ReplyDelete