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...

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.