Gender Issues in Unwind

1. Females

1.1. I feel as though the women in the novel were not treated equally with the men of the novel. When they made it to the graveyard, the men seemed to get the more important jobs that were more desirable to the people.

1.2. The women are portrayed as less important than the males in the novel. They never faced any real hardships and if they were to be put into a situation where they were in danger, it either ended badly, or a male came and had to resolve it. When Roland cornered Risa into the bathroom, Risa did nothing and cowered away from him, he only stopped when Connor came in and took care of him.

1.3. The females seemed to only serve the purpose of being supporting roles to the men. Risa was not a very significant character and the plot never seemed to be focused on her. It was always focused on the males in the story and Risa was a supporting character to their story.

2. Males

2.1. The males in Unwind were seem as strong, hardworking and important to the plot. At the graveyard, they got the desirable jobs that made them a very helpful part of the operation, when the women seemed to get the leftovers. This suggests that the men are more important to their society than the women. Earlier in the novel when Connor had taken the baby, he was not able to take care of it so the job was given to Risa. She was a main part of their team and she was given the burden of taking care of the child that she had never seen before and doing so while they were on the run. Further proving that the women got the short end of the stick in these situations.

2.2. The males were the main antagonists and protagonists in the story. The antagonist of the story seemed to be Roland and the protagonist seemed to be Connor, both males. This shows that the author considers the females incapable of holding the roles of important characters and not strong willed enough to hold the kind of personalities that these two males had.