Gender in "Salvage the Bones"

There are many ways that gender is portrayed a binary split between women and men, but there are also many other times when this line is blurred. Our protagonist, Esch, is surrounded by many male figures including her brothers, her father, her "lover" Manny, as well as many of her brother's friends. This in conjunction with the fact that she has no close female connections has caused her to take on many male roles and mannerisms. She does the same tasks her brothers do around the Pit and she wears the same clothes that her brothers wear. Esch even remarks that her Daddy forgets that she is a girl sometimes. Esch also does many tasks that are traditionally feminine like cooking and doing the laundry (but these tasks are shared also.)

This duality isn’t just seen on the female side, Esch’s brother Randall does tasks that are traditionally feminine. When their youngest brother, Junior, was a baby Randall and Esch took on the role of “mothering” him. Randall fed him, changed his diaper, and held him the most. Even now that Junior is bigger, he is always around Randall or being held by him. Randall who is seen as a basketball star takes the nurturing for little brother. Other characters perform gender in a very straight forward way like Manny and his girlfriend Shaliyah.

Manny, like Randall, plays basketball and is a notorious womanizer. He is holds strong views about it means to be to a man or a woman. He is described as expecting his girlfriend Shaliyah to do many of the household task in the trailer they share like doing the laundry. He also tells Skeetah that he thinks the act of motherhood is what makes females (human or feline) weak. His girlfriend Shaliyah presents herself in very feminine ways like in the way she dresses and acts (and even when she fighting other girls over Manny, I would argue.) She also does the things Manny expects of her like doing the laundry.