Gender Ideologies and the Informal Economy

Abstract

John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath ends with Rose of Sharon Joad breastfeeding a man debilitated by the effects of the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the course of the novel, as men's roles in providing for their families disintegrate, women, in the form of Ma Joad and later Rose of Sharon, as those responsible for the daily reproductive needs of their households, take on increasing importance. They undertake old activities in new ways or new activities that are still ideologically feminine: breast milk, an age-old product, is used to sustain adults. The role of such activities with respect to larger economic processes has undergone a transformation: a woman breastfeeding her own child in the United States in the 1930s is carrying out a reproductive task in the reciprocal context of the family; giving breast milk to a man who is in possession of shelter that the Joads want to share can arguably be seen as an exchange that is part of the Joads' response to the crisis in the wider economy. There are clear limits to applying this fictional analogy to a real situation, as there are in comparing the 1930s Depression to the late-20th-century context.! Nevertheless, the general outlines of the situation present an interesting comparison with other cases in which men's economic role is strongly associated with productive activities that are insufficient or no longer viable because of economic crisis, and women are strongly associated with reproductive responsibility for the household. In such circumstances, the Grapes-