Going off of our conversation in class today, gender is an interesting lens through which to look at the story and its characters. On the one hand, we see the egalitarian relationship between Aunt Em and Uncle Henry — he is not the sole breadwinner, for she carries her weight in completing labor. We also see other examples of matriarchy, such as the Queen of the Field Mice. Dorothy is the “everywoman” in that she does not have a whole lot of distinguishing characteristics that would separate or differentiate her from the average young girl from Kansas. And while the witches are actually much more powerful than the Wizard of Oz, what interests me most is the dichotomy between these witches — the battle of good vs. evil, or a so-called harlot-saint dichotomy. It’s a common trope to present female characters at either extreme end of the binary — being wholly good or bad, but the reality of women, and of people, is that they are complex. The difference between purity and evil is set out between Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West, but in painting them in such stark terms — at odds with each other, this binary is reinforced, despite all the other empowering roles for female characters in the book.