She stopped her work then and inspected him oddly, as though he suggested a curious thing. And her hands were crusted with salt, pink with fluid from the fresh pork. "It’s women’s work," she said finally.
"It’s all work," the preacher replied. "They’s too much of it to split it up to men’s or women’s work. You got stuff to do. Leave me salt the meat."

– John Steinbeck

The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 10. We see traditional gender roles at play here, when Jim Casy suggests that Ma Joad leave him to salt down the pork bones for breakfast. Ma shows how much she is influenced by the family patriarchal system when she says that it is women’s work. But the authoritative tone of Casy prevails and Ma allows him to do the salting.