Throughout the novel Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell illustrates the abuse and disrespect the women receive from the men. While the men’s future career options are very limited (meth cook), the women are left with the role of being a wife and mother. Ree tries to escape this cycle by joining the military and rejecting the societal expectations predetermined for her.
Ree watches the women in her life suffer at the hands of men and experiences the abuse herself. The women are seen as objects in this part of the Ozarks. The town’s beliefs seem to be built on the idea that women are always the one’s to blame. In the cave, Ree remembers the story of the bitter old reckoning–how the town came to be. According to Ree, all the people in town say “there’d been a woman” when discussing the reckoning (Woodrell 66). It resembles the Bible with the story of Adam and Eve. It is often taught that Eve is to blame for sins, and it seems the people in town blame the bitter reckoning on women as well.
This attitude is evident in all the marriages and the men and women's interactions in the novel. Ree’s mother suffers from a mental illness after enduring abuse, being cheated on, and living through the stress of her husband’s frequent absences. Ree’s mom finds “a few beatings for love in life” bearable, but “It was those terrible ass-whippings she’d taken during one-night stands” that leave her shaken up (Woodrell 42). The men have such little respect for the women in the town that after barely even knowing them, they resort to physically abusing them.
Furthermore, marriage does not hold much significance in the town. Both Ree’s mother and father cheat on each other. One of the main reason’s Ree’s mother loses her mind is due to her father’s long term relationship with April. Ree notices how her “Mom’s mind didn’t break loose…until…she learned about Dad’s girlfriend” (Woodrell 30). The men are allowed to run around and do the things they desire, but they expect the women to raise the children and keep the house.
Women get caught in this toxic cycle by getting pregnant at a young age. Ree witnesses “pregnant girls she knew huddled by their special side entrance holding textbooks and bumping bellies” at school (Woodrell 48). Ree’s friend, Gail, gets pregnant at a young age. As Ree watches her breastfeed, she sees “the looming expected kind of future and not one she wanted” (93). Furthermore, Ree experiences abuse at the hands of men, furthering her animosity towards men. Her cousin rapes her after tricking her by saying, “a handful of mushrooms…make fried baloney taste the way gold looks” (54). Woodrell insinuates that the mushrooms were actually psilocybin mushrooms, giving Ree an hallucinogenic effect. During this effect, her cousin rapes her, and Ree notices after the drugs wear off saying, “If not for her ripped panties she might not have later been sure it happened at all” (55). After this traumatic experience combined with viewing the other experiences of the women in her life, it makes sense why she says, “‘I ain’t lookin’ to marry’” (168).
The town's perception of women is upsetting to see but Ree's determination to break the cycle is what makes her interesting to read about. She does fit into the role of caretaker as she is responsible for the well being of her brothers and mother, but she doesn't let them confine her to the town. Her goal of leaving and joining the army is ambitious for a woman in that community. As mentioned, a lot of the young women are stuck in a toxic cycle in which they get pregnant as a teenager and a trapped with men who don't treat them the way they should. We see this first hand which Gail and her husband Floyd. When Ree goes to visit Gail in the beginning of the novel, the girls have to wait for Floyd to give his approval before she can even enter the house. Even then he says to Ree, "Don't hang around too long. She's got that kid now" (33). Floyd pushes all of the responsibility of handling the baby onto Gail as she is the woman and caretaker. Never throughout the novel do we see Floyd acting like a good father or showing any genuine love or care to either Gail or the child.
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