Gender, In Dubious Battle

Throughout the book in my opinion women were portrayed more as a behind the scene woman. Nobody knew exactly what women were thinking in the book. Steinbeck emphasized the male gender more than the woman’s role throughout his novel.

Take for instance the woman who gives birth to a child with the assistance of Mac, a party member who uses any means necessary to achieve a goal towards justice for the workers. It seemed that the female was scene as nothing more as a child bearer and nothing more. Or Dankins wife

In Dubious Battle, Steinbeck obviously gave male genders a bigger role in this story, even knowing that women to striked to gain justic. Steinbeck mostly used the women characters he created to have only been given a role of a weak person lingering in the shadows. Throughout the novel, there has only been one female character that has been mentioned more than once—Lisa. Lisa did not have that much of a role in Steinbecks novel, but the little that she had showed her as somewhat a innocent young lady just waiting to be saved. She was though seen as a helper to the men and to Jim in particular along with some decision making. Although Steinbeck depicts the women in his novel and weak individuals in reality women are stronger than they appear and can achieve just as much as any man can.

Gender play in this novel obviously made this more about the male gender in almost every important event. As little parts here and there were tossed in with a paragraph or two when a woman was finally portrayed in the story, they were no more as just a mere image of a woman standing behind the husband taking orders by a glance he gives her. A woman who sits and listens in silence but her images she makes can only be expressed in silence in hopes that you can unravel her mystery.

Womens view and accounts to a strike obviously was not that engaging to where it was critical for Steinbeck to put in his novel, but I think he should of took the time to visually show us an image of women in that era and time. I am sure if the women Steinbeck created in his story were able to speak the truth throught he words of Steinbeck's mouth we would definitely be just as interested to read and know what the women experienced during the times of a strike.

All in all my feelings about how the women were pertrieved and had little to none significance in this story only made me wish that there was more insight to the female characters throughout the book. At least one character had some significance but little to none more than that, Lisa, London's daugher-n-law. She in a blinding and helpless way was the first person to actually help lay the foundation for Mac and Jim to help get the men to accept them, trust them, and learned by them how to work as a team.