Ken Kesey Sexism

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Recommended: Gender roles in the 19th century usa

In 1950s society, a traditional gender-enforced period, women were seen as and only as the housemaids. Weak and docile under the male’s gaze, women accepted the roles as submissive wives without many of them having accomplished well-paid jobs. The 1960s was a pinnacle time with the second wave of the feminist movement, after 1920s suffrage, were women felt more empowered and open with their opinions. While the movement inspired works like the 1962, Betty Friedan book The Feminine Mystique, were she explains the trials of sexism and the frustration of identity, but it also caused uproar with the American authors who disapproved movement and shifting power roles. Ken Kesey was one of these authors. Kesey fought every unfair societal issue from …show more content…

“She slides through the door with a gust of cold and locks the door behind her and I see her fingers trail across the polished steel—tip of each finger the same color as her lips. Funny orange. Like the tip of a soldering iron. Color so hot or so cold if she touches you with it you can’t tell which.” Kesey sees her as cold, awkward-looking woman; he demonizes her to be a fearsome being because of her high status. When Chief is describing her bag her carries at work he explains, “there’s no compact or lipstick or woman stuff, she’s got that bag full of thousand parts she aims to use in her duties today—wheels and gears, cogs polished to a hard glitter, tiny pills that gleam like porcelain, needles, forceps, watchmakers’ pliers, rolls of copper wire …”, further the idea women are meant to be pretty and/or beautiful every they go even in the long hours of work. One could even assume the list of medical tools could be in a negative tone and the “woman stuff” in a positive one despite the former actually being for a working purpose. What is also an alarming characterization about the Big Nurse the “size of her bosom.” Chief describes them as “a mistake was made somehow in manufacturing, putting those big, womanly breasts on what would of otherwise been a perfect work, and you can see how bitter she is about

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