Women in surprising numbers, bearing the marks of their trades, scars from the blades of the meatpacking floors, squints from needlework carried past the borderlands of sleep in clockless bad light, women in head-scarves, crocheted fascinators, extravagantly flowered hats, no hats at all, women just looking to put their feet up after too many hours of lifting, fetching, walking the jobless avenues, bearing the insults of the day . . .
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This feels like Pynchon trying to write The Grapes of Wrath in one sentence. Maybe it also helps if you remember the previous sentence (or was that last sentence just part of this sentence?!) about the men folk being so beat down by their own failure to provide that they do less work than the women? More the sullen part than the flatulent part, is what I'm getting at.
This sentence feels like a poem I probably read in my Modern Poetry class in college where I was taught that women were human beings and not just objects. I'd say I probably knew that already but that would sound like I was bragging. Although I had seen and understood Boxing Helena, so, you know. Smart cookie, this one!
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