Gender Roles In The Grapes Of Wrath

Setting including time period and location can have a direct effect on how genders roles are perceived. I believe that this is true in both fiction and in real life when the times are good and the country is stable people will fall into the age old mindset that men are the rulers of the household, country and any establishment of power while women are the homemakers, the healers and the bearers of children. This is because people are afraid of changing anything lest their comfort and stability be taken away-why change what’s been tried and proven and risk upsetting the peace we have now?
When times are tough however, people will look towards those who can lead them back to comfort and stability-no matter their gender.
This is true of gender roles in “The Grapes of Wrath” as well. Towards the beginning of the book men are portrayed and think of themselves as the rulers of the household, as the ones responsible for making sure their wives and families ate and lived comfortably no matter what. The women are portrayed as the rocks who
keep the husbands strong and the household firmly rooted to the ground they cook and clean and take care of the children, without them the family wouldn’t be a family. The women take cues from the men and the children look to the women to see if everything is alright.
This is shown in the very first chapter when the dust first arrives destroying the crops and the families only source of income. The women are tense looking to see if there men will break and the children watch to see if the men and women will break because even though they don’t understand what has happened they can sense that something is wrong. When we meet the Joads Pa-nay, the men are very much in charge of the family. They have little meetings where they all gather around and decide what will be best for the family. Moving to California or staying on the land that they had called home for generations? The men are the ones who make the decision to move to California and the women go along with it-after all, what else would they do without a family to support. It is only when Casey asks to come along with them that the women finally have a voice in the decision-although by their own insistence.
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. 'Course I can't say right now; Pa says all the men'll talk tonight." (Grapes of Wrath 93)
This quote from “The Grapes of Wrath” is an example of the mentality of the women of the time. They believed that it was the men’s RIGHT to have a chance to speak. Why is this? Why do the women believe that it is a man’s RIGHT by nature to have a say in all the decisions? Because of one simple reason: they are the reason why the children don’t starve and the reason why they are able to live a comfortable life. Of course this idea seems silly to us living in the 21st century why doesn’t she just get a job and make her own money? We ask not understanding the extreme reliance the women of the mid-20th century had on men. The answer to that question is simple, because of setting.
“Behind every successful man is a woman and behind her is his wife.” –Groucho Marx
If we completely disregard the second part of the quote it is a perfect example of the prevailing mindset of the time. Society frowned upon the women doing any work outside of the home, in the eyes of society women belonged in the household to look after the children, cook the man warm meals and make sure that the man was in all ways convenienced so that he could contribute to the greater advancement of the world. This changes drastically however when the trip to California begins-thus changing the setting.
As the trip progresses and the men are uprooted from the land that they call home they slowly begin to lose power –to the women who are smarter in the way’s of frugality and survival making them better candidates to lead the family.
Or at least advise the men. When the elderly become sick it’s the women who know what steps to take in order to nurse them back to health, when the money runs low it’s the women who come up with ways to stretch out the food supply and when they are met with some unforeseen accident it is the women who know that the family will never survive without each other.
The jack handle flickered hungrialy back and forth in Ma’s hand. “Come on,” said Ma. “You make up your mind. Come on and whup me. Jus’ try it. But I ain’t a-goin’; or if I do, you ain’t never gonna get no sleep,’cause I’ll wait an’ I’ll wait an’ jus the minute you take sleep in your eyes, I’ll slap ya with a stick a stove wood.” (Grapes of Wrath
169)
This is the exact moment in which the role of the women in the novel changes. At this point in time the family is stranded in the middle of nowhere with barley no money with no hope of ever making it to California and the men want to break up the family so that they can go back and get some parts to fix the car. However, the women-or Ma Joad in this case have had enough, they want to their thoughts to be heard loud and clear. And they will do anything-including inflicting physical harm to get those thoughts heard. The women unlike the men know that without the family there to push each other on then they have no chance of making it through the hell they were trapped in alive.