Ma’s face blackened with anger. She got slowly to her feet. She stooped to the utensil box and picked out the iron skillet. "Mister," she said, "you got a tin button an’ a gun. Where I come from, you keep your voice down." She advanced on him with the skillet. He loosened the gun in the holster. "Go ahead," said Ma. "Scarin’ women. I’m thankful the men folks ain’t here. They’d tear ya to pieces. In my country you watch your tongue."
– John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath, Chapter 18. The Joads experience the naked prejudice of the police in California for the first time. An armed officer visits the Joad tent on the banks of the Colorado River, with an ill Granma, Ma and a pregnant Rose of Sharon inside. He warns that if they are not gone by tomorrow he will arrest them, as they don’t want migrants settling in the place. Ma Joad shows her steel by threatening the officer with an iron skillet and shaming him over his scaring women. It seems that Tom Joad is not the only one in the family who has a dislike for authority, especially when it is abused.