Catch 22 Gender Analysis

Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 portrays women as useless to the society and as sex objects more than human beings. Among Catch-22’s multiple characters there are very few women, most come across as sex object more than women during the war. However, this treatment of women could be influenced vastly by their living situation. These men during the war are only surrounded by other men most of the time. There are occasional women that appear that break up the male dominance within the novel. But, these women the reader is introduced to do not always have the privilege to be named. However, Heller’s view on women in society appear incoherent, much like the novel itself. Heller’s use of female characters does not give us a clear understanding of his

During the war the men are with each other everyday with very little contact to women. These men are trapped into homosexuality in a form due to the fact they are surrounded by other men. However, because they are surrounded by one another it wouldn’t make it appropriate to grab women the way they do. There are probably other ways the men could have asked for sex from these women instead of belittling their importance altogether. Therefore, due to the way the men treat the women the reason the women respond like whores is because that’s the way they all know they will be able to have sex together. The number of women in the novel could be due to the fact there were very few women at war with men. Therefore, their importance is equal to the way Heller portrays them in Catch-22. The men want to have sex and they feel the only way women respond is by downgrading them to a submissive level. So, the women feel the only way to grab the attention of a man, especially a soldier, they must belittle themselves and submit to the man. This could be because in years past men have always been the dominant gender. The relationships between the soldiers prove that male dominance has a role within society and women are downgraded because men will only respond if the woman submits to the man himself. The way Nately’s whore responds to Nately’s death by trying to kill Yossarian with every chance she gets could be because she feels she has no man to submit to. She has lost the dominant “partner”, even though she was a prostitute. Heller doesn’t name the women to suggest their role in society. He uses the war as a way to connect the male dominance and the relationships men make to build that