Dagny and Jim Taggart gender role analysis

The siblings Dagny and Jim taggart are some of the characters Ayn Rand introduces to her readers in the first part of her novel. Jim and Dagny are the President and the Vice-President, respectively, of Taggart Transcontinental; although the roles should perhaps be switched considering Dagny is the more talented of the two siblings.

Rand characterizes Dagny as a brilliant woman who happens to be extremely talented when it comes to business. Unlike her brother, Dagny makes reasonable business decisions that would bring about profit for the company, such as the Rearden Metal decision. In this business move, Dagny wants to build a railroad using a new alloy from a company that can provide more materials, at a quicker rate. In contrast, Jim Taggart values his relationship with Orren Boyle over the good of the company, and so he says that he wants to keep buying from Boyle’s company instead of switching to Rearden Metal.

I find it intriguing that with the setting of the story, which seems to be somewhere around the Great Depression, Rand made Dagny, a woman, the more apt of the two siblings when it comes to business. Even at the time Rand wrote this book (1957) women were not usually running businesses. They were more often than not homemakers or working simple jobs. For a woman to be the brains of a company such as Transcontinental Taggart would have been unheard of. Furthermore, women are known to care for relationships more than men. Because of this, Jim and Dagny Taggart do not fit the traditional images of a man and woman of the time. I wonder whether or not Rand purposely did this in an attempt to support gender equality and whether or not she will continue to develop other characters in this unexpected way.


-Juan Pino