Whether it is looking through an “address book for girls” (pg.42), commenting on the “beautiful well-dressed blonde” (pg. 47), or observing the huge “crew” (pg.48) of women working for him, I again found myself primarily focusing on the subordinate female roles that Sal comments on in this week’s reading; he constantly emphasizes a woman’s combined purpose of being an object of a man’s physical pleasure in a superficial relationship while simultaneously being a subordinate waitress in both the diner and the household. We furthermore realize that these conventions are not only defined by men, but also by the women themselves who accept their roles as slaves in the bedroom and in the kitchen; for when Sal asks Rita, who is “lined up” (pg. 51) for him that night what she wants to do with her life, she responds, that her desire is to “just wait on tables and try to get along” (pg.51). Also, with a simple demand of “Come on help us clean up the joint” (pg. 48) from Sal and his friends, the women automatically submit, as if the thought to reject the command never even crossed their minds. Although I know Kerouac is honestly portraying the attitude of the beat generation across America as he says, “Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk” (pg.52), I cannot help but be somewhat dissatisfied with the clear discrimination of women by the men of the era. Overall, I am slightly bothered by the novel because I feel like the author shares this superior attitude too.
I agree that there is an underlying tone of sexism here, but I am inclined to believe that this is meant to be a factor of the setting, as opposed to being a representation of Kerouac's views as you have suggested. I think it would be quite difficult to argue that Sal and his friends have not objectified women, but I am not sure if we can take it so far as to say that women are represented as inferior. With your example from page 48, the men were asking the women to help them not to clean up the mess for them, I personally believe helping them would be the polite thing to do. With this I argue that I would have likely complied just as quickly. I am unsure that I can agree that Sal and his environment is so aggressively sexist, but I can of course concede to the fact that the men in this novel seem to only think of women in terms of sex. I do not think they believe women to be inferior, but they definitely do not see much beyond the potential for sexual interactions.
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