This novel, written by Ken Kesey, is a good read, though I feel like sexism against women is extremely prevalent. It might be the fact that this book was written during the women's movement and Kesey was expressing his views on the subject. I feel it is necessary to get some background on the feminist movement to try and dive into the time period this novel was written in and see what exactly was going on.
What I uncovered was that the 1960's was when the second wave of the feminist movement was in full swing. Women were fighting for political and cultural equality that was being denied to them by the rest of the population; they wanted discrimination to end so that they could live their lives the same as men did. Protests and lawsuits were two of the ways that they got their message out. Many women fought long and hard so that their voices could be heard and something could actually be done. So with this in mind I want to discuss the sexism within this book and tie it into Kesey's possible views on the subject.
In the novel we are handed a bunch of male characters, that are in an insane asylum for various reasons, and only a few females characters (with most of them being in positions of power). It becomes clear that the women who are in power are characterized as being "mental castrators" who belittle the men into thinking that they are powerless against women. One such woman would be the infamous nurse Ratched, all of the men on her ward are afraid of her and her ability to "mentally castrate" the men. We, the readers, immediately cast her as the antagonist and hold negative views against her the whole time. Whereas the prostitutes that enter the book are cast as dumb, easy women who can't think for themselves. These opposing views of women can be interpreted as Kesey's personal view on the feminist movement. We, the readers, can take this and branch of into a bunch of different assumptions as to what the juxtaposition of these two types of women, present within the novel, symbolize. The way that I want to run with it would be that Kesey was telling us that there can only be two types of females; the ones that are in power and hurt the male ego or the ones that are so dumb they'll believe anything you tell them.
Personally, it feels like Kesey was probably afraid of women gaining the same rights and equality he possessed. There was so much talk about mental castration within the novel that I have come to believe that he felt that his manhood would be threatened by women who would gain power during this time. Many people would have been in agreement as well. A lot of men felt that women should stay in their traditional role of staying at home and dealing with the kids. Now-a-days this way of thinking isn't so prevalent within our society, but traces of this view are still around.
To sum everything up, I would have to say that Kesey had injected his own views on the feminist movement into this novel while writing it. While the novel is a very good read, the readers have to have background information on the time period it was written so that they will be able to understand the symbolism behind it all. I would recommend this novel to anyone who has the time to actually enjoy the novel as I have.
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