In your opinion, does Curley's Wife from Of Mice and Men suffer from oppression because she is a woman?

Curley's Wife suffers from oppression and isolation because she is a woman.  Steinbeck uses her as a stock character to represent another type of outcast in his novella of outcasts. While Lennie and George are outcasts because of Lennie's mental handicap and their unusual relationship, while Candy is isolated because of his age and injury, and while Crooks lives a solitary life because of his race, Curley's Wife endures the same type of isolation because of her gender.

Because she is a woman, Curley's Wife cannot communicate with others--something that most of the men on the ranch (with the exception of Crooks) have freedom to do. Because she is woman, she cannot physically move about the ranch as others do without lewd comments being made and suspicion being created. Because she is a woman, she gave up on her dreams for a better life and married to try to ensure some type of security in the insecure times of the Great Depression. Finally, because she is a woman, Curley's Wife must endure treatment from Curley seemingly without a defender.  Even the physically strong Lennie is defended by George and Slim, but Curley's Wife alludes to physical and verbal abuse and receives no outward sympathy or even retribution--again, because of her gender and role as the "anonymous" Curley's Wife.