Is "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" a feminist work??

It would be
difficult to define "Good Man is Hard to Find" as a feminist work. First, the central
female character, the Grandmother, is not a feminist figure. She continually defines herself as
a "lady" throughout the story, an anti-feminist term that implies that she is more
delicate than a man. She wears a navy blue straw sailor's hat with a sprig of white violets
pinned to it and lace around her collar and cuffs to signal "at once" that she is a
lady. In fact, she uses the idea that women need to be protected as the weaker sex as a defense
when she realizes the Misfit is about to kill her, saying "You wouldn't shoot a lady, would
you?" Then, as if to reinforce the message, she takes out a "clean handkerchief"
(what a proper lady would carry) to wipe her eyes.

Second, O'Connor defined
herself, first and foremost as a Roman Catholic, and in a 1963 essay, stated that her
"assumptions" in this story "are those of the central Christian mysteries."
The Grandmother's gender is secondary to the point O'Connor is trying to make: that God's grace
is available to everyone, male or female.

It's important to note that a work
of literature can transcend or jump beyond an author's intention, but in this case, the story
does not head in a feminist direction.