Joseph Heller is quoted¹ as saying "[Yossarian] has certain flaws in relationship to women," and I am quoted as saying "and you don't???" I'm not alone in that mindset; multiple essayists and podcasters point out that sometimes the characters in Catch-22 are intentionally written to be misogynistic and other times Heller is being passively misogynistic himself, but that's the beginning and end of conversation (bonus points if misogyny is dismissed as 'a product of its time,' despite being cartoonishly bad even by 50s standards.)
Misogyny operating on two levels in a piece of media, some of it in-universe (the characters are to blame) and some of it structural (the storyteller is to blame) is a tale as old as time, but what does that actually look like in practice? Can we draw lines between whose misogyny is whose?² I've gone back and forth on whether this was worth a text post since the topic really deserves a full-length essay and ongoing conversation, but I think it's a helpful starting point for both of those things... So here's my Venn diagram:
Yossarian's misogyny: The guy straight-up doesn't like or respect women. He consciously prefers the company of men, thinks women are conniving, difficult, and demanding in way that men aren't, considers them best used for sexual gratification, and believes they pale in comparison to men when it comes to conversation, learning, and play. It's not that there's zero overlap with Heller here (frankly I think there's more than he would like), but that it's the kind of misogyny he's willing to criticize. Heller had friendships and working relationships with women in his own life in a way that Yossarian seems incapable of, and writes his female characters as people with interiority. Narratively we are told that Yossarian is wrong for dismissing women as unworthy of his time and attention; most of them are written to be smarter and more insightful than he is, and while 'intelligence = worth and goodness' is its own can of worms an audience can take that for the compliment it is.
Yossarian and Heller's misogyny: Both think gender essentialism is real. Both think smart and sexually desirable³ women are the best kind of women.
Heller's misogyny, i.e. narrative misogyny: People think there's a 'line' when it comes to sexual assault, and Heller makes that line an ontological reality. The good guys are constantly sexually harassing women, but also rape is the worst thing the worst person could do to another human being.⁴ The scene in the hospital is a perfect illustration of this- Dunbar gropes Duckett and it's seen as unwanted but ultimately harmless attention; he "lunges" at her and it's framed as a bridge too far, upsetting her and resulting in his making an injured fool of himself. To Heller's mind the threat of sexual violence is neatly categorized into 'nonthreatening play' and 'assault'; this comes across in the novel not as a matter of Yossarian's perspective but as a matter of fact. Women can be objectified, touched, and teased with impunity so long as they're not being physically or emotionally hurt, which is determined not by the woman but on a case-by-case basis,⁵ lest there be a misunderstanding and the wrong man is punished.⁶ It's infuriating in a book that's otherwise very outspoken about violence (including sexual violence!) being systemic and personhood being about actions rather than attributes, but it's also fascinating in that it's one of the best literary representations I've seen of how sexual harassment is perceived and the conversations people have about it. 'Women are the same as men and deserve exactly the same rights, do not bother them' is not a takeaway that anyone writing or experiencing Catch-22 offers.
¹ "An Impolite Interview with Joseph Heller." Paul Krassner, The Realist, November, 1962, pp. 18-31
³ To Heller's credit (last time I will say this lol) I think he actually does some really interesting stuff wrt what Yossarian finds attractive in people and even subverts the literary convention of equating appearance with morality, but didn't stop him from experiencing the same pitfalls
⁴ Doskow's "The Night Journey in Catch-22" does a good job of explaining how chapter 39, The Eternal City, is in direct conversation with Dante's Inferno. While this isn't the only way to read the book it helps illustrate just how much Heller loathed the idea of a specific image of rape, as the rape takes place at the center of metaphorical Hell in connection with the Devil
⁵ For all his progressiveness in writing sex workers as, well, human, it's very noteworthy that the woman who is raped and killed is an 'innocent', a maid. Likewise Yossarian is chastised for groping Luciana not because it was a horrible thing to do but because she's not "the kind of woman" who ""likes"" to be touched """like that"" "
⁶ Heller also loves to play women threatening men as comedy- the idea of a woman attacking a man, especially sexually (literally or symbolically penetrating him), being framed as funny ('what if the girl one was aggressive and decisive and the boy one was weak and foolish') is such bottom of the barrel misogyny and such an enduring trope
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