How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)
Quote #1
Bobolink came up the road out of the trees and went across the railroad and into the trees again like a bird, with Cousin Drusilla riding astride like a man and sitting straight and light as a willow branch in the wind. They say she was the best woman rider in the country. (3.2.12)
This sentence has three similes to compare unlike things. Bobolink, the horse, runs like a bird, which makes us think he must be moving quick and light. Drusilla rides like a man because she has her legs hanging on either side of the horse instead of both on the same side (plus she's light as a willow branch, which is about as light as a tree simile can get). So at that time, a woman acting like a man was as strange as a horse acting like a bird.
Quote #2
Her hair was cut short; it looked like Father's would when he would tell Granny about him and the men cutting each other's hair with a bayonet. She was sunburned and her hands were hard and scratched like a man's that works. (3.2.24)
Cousin Dru is all about pushing gender boundaries. Her hair, skin, and hands all show signs of outdoor work. That may seem normal for all you urban gardeners or cross-country runners, but at the time all of those signs showed that Dru was not a proper lady and acted more like a man than a woman.
Quote #3
[E]verybody thought that the food we had to eat in 1862 and 63 would finish killing him, even if he had eaten it with women to cook it instead of gathering weeds from ditch banks and cooking them himself. (4.2.2)
Brother Fortinbride is a survivor, and everyone marvels that he survived his own cooking. It isn't that he's a particularly bad cook; it's that he's a man. In the 19th century cooking was women's work, and we can see from this quote that the roles were pretty hard and fast.