The Modern Doll House: A Warning For Today's Women

     After reading Henrik Ibsen's "A Doll House," I realized the importance of continuing to teach this text in class. When reading more historical-based pieces, people often fail to understand how the events and messages present in the text are relevant to the current day. I found this to be true during our reading of "A Doll House", which presents women in a way that we don't often do in today's society. In the modern day, women are able, and even encouraged in some cases, to work outside of the home and pursue their own careers rather than solely focusing on homemaking. Unlike our current society, the women in "A Doll House" are treated like ignorant children who know nothing of the world by the male characters. This dynamic is especially present between Nora and Torvald, who often refers to Nora as "my squirrel" or other nicknames relating to her immature and delicate nature (Ibsen, 101). This term of endearment illustrates how Torvald infantilizes Nora and indicates that he views her as his possession rather than her own person. Although we have become more progressive with how women are viewed in society, these advances have not been as radical as many think. As Pamela Paul stated in her article "Women Are Still Stuck in a Doll's House", women's rights are "when not outright ignored, are often an afterthought," (Paul, 1). Many people today are ignorant to the injustices still faced by women today and believe that men and women are now on equal footing. While small advancements have been made to improve how women are seen in society, regressive mindsets about gender and gender roles still remain. For example, women are not only expected to take care of the majority of household chores, but they now have to balance maintaining the home while also working twice as hard at their jobs while receiving lower pay. Furthermore, women are expected to give up their career aspirations to raise children, be a caretaker, or become a wife. Even though women are now given similar freedoms to men, they are still expected to be docile and subservient and follow the lead of a man. This dynamic appears in Nora and Torvald's marriage, when Nora tells him "You know I could never think of going against you," (Ibsen, 102).  These strict gender roles are not only present in marriage, and are enforced even in early childhood, creating a strict gender divide between boys and girls that continues into adulthood. Teaching a play that features such restrictive gender inequality is especially relevant in today's political climate, as it sets an example for what the future may look like for women. By studying this text, students become more aware of instances in their own lives where they have witnessed, or even enforced, gender inequality. It is important to continue to teach this play in order for students to remain aware of the gender inequalities that still persist in today's society, as well as how we can easily regress if people are ignorant to the realities of modern gender-based oppression.