In “The Dead” and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce depicts Dublin women who publicly refuse food. Miss Ivors in “The Dead” and Dante  in  Portrait,  with  their  socioeconomic privilege  of  independence, undermine  the  authority  of  patriarchs  by  the  act  of  refusing  food.  In  the discussion of “The Dead,” Margot Norris points out that Joyce’s male narrator often colludes with patriarchal structures, attempting to subordinate women. I observe the same collusion in the Christmas dinner scene in Portrait in which the male narrator sympathizes with the astonishment of little Stephen and the agony of Parnellite men. In such a context, Dublin women’s refusal of food can be a symbolic rejection of expected gender performances. Judith Butler claims gender identity as a performative accomplishment compelled by social sanction and taboo. She describes gender identity as the stylized repetition of acts through time and suggests the possibilities of gender transformation being found  in  the breaking  or  subversive repetition of  gender  performance.  The refusal of food by Dante and Miss Ivors can also represent a subversive act that disrupts what Butler calls the “stylized repetition of acts” (519). In the end, my paper argues, Joyce compels us to recognize the social oppression women face under patriarchy by revealing the patriarchal perspectives.