The Status Of Women In John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

The fight for equal rights has been a battle long fought for women all across the world. In his book, Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck does a superb job at portraying the social outlook of women in the 1930’s Salinas River Valley. During this time, a woman was deemed inferior to man and they had very little rights compared to men, though they were making a climb up the social ladder. Women had recently gained the right to vote nearly a decade earlier in 1920 and were continuing to change their daily life, but things were not progressing as quickly everywhere. Steinbeck shows, in Of Mice and Men, that during the 1930’s women were seen as secondary to the men through his detail in the men’s perspective of women, his character development of Curley’s Wife, and the lack of power that women had. In this time period, men had a very low perspective of a woman as compared to a man. To begin, most men deemed themselves primary and women as secondary. For example, this is shown in the book when neither of the two female characters in the book are given names. The girl in weed was never given and official name and neither was Curley’s Wife. This shows the insignificance of the girl’s character, despite both of them having semi-important roles in the book. Also, the male’s perspective is shown in the way all of

While many different outlooks can be seen in this novel, he does an excellent job at showing the role of women and their progress during this time period. He shows how women had very little significance as compared to the role of men and their importance. Although there was much lack of rights for women during the time period, Steinbeck uses the men’s outlook on a woman, Curley’s Wife as a character, and the easily manipulated power, or lack thereof, that a woman had to show how in this time, women were thought to be inferior to