Inequality In Winter's Bone

Inequality is faced daily by people of all races, religions, and genders. Women, for example, are still faced with the crisis of equal pay in the workplace and constant sexism from employers and a growing pop culture. The inequality is seen in the book Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell. Through a highly patriarchal community, the women in the book, especially Ree, are brought against harsh conditions, both physical and mental. Through the analysis of female characters in the novel Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell, through categorizing women in the three groups of caregivers, survivors, and prisoners, comments on the inequality women face in society.
All throughout the novel, there is the constant reminder of a women’s stereotypical role as the

She is tasked with the unfair role of caring for her family and looking for her dad. She could have given up, but her unconscious fear and lack of trust of men, left her to juggle both. Just like Ree, the rest of the women in the community take up this responsibility of a caretaker through their lack of trust in the men of the society. It is in this regard that Ree is forced to try and fix the molding of her brothers who seem to be destined to follow in the same footsteps of the men in their family, undependable and lacking a sense of responsibility. She identifies the unequivocal resemblance between Sonny and Blond Milton in that they have a “punishing spirit” (Woodrell 8). Though Harold is not as hostile and as strong, he seems to be following in the same footsteps. Ree, as a woman, is prompted to take significant action that would help achieve her “grand hope…that these boys would not be dead to wonder by age twelve, dead to life, empty of kindness, boiling with mean” (Woodrell 8). Here Ree clearly shows what all the women, as caregivers, want: To not have their children grow up to be rotten. Through their stereotypical role as caregivers, the women are forced to take sole responsibility of their families, but also in hopes they achieve a better