The Role Of Women Throughout History - Essay Example

Henrik Ibsen, in his play A Doll’s House, explores the private world of oppression within a woman’s world and the ways in which she must rewire her thinking in order to gain freedom. As he explores individual self development, his characters must undergo great changes and sacrifices, many of which are still considered controversial in nature. The play A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen came at time when great awakenings about freedom were beginning to create discussions about who was entitled to freedom and in what ways that freedom could be expressed.

One of the colloquialisms about women is that they are the ‘weaker sex’. While this comment is primarily intended to address physical strength, it also denotes a social attitude that women are also emotionally and intellectually weaker than men. As biological creatures, women are plagued with shifting hormones that effect their emotions, just as men are filled with testosterone that impacts on their anger. This has been used as an excuse to place women in a subservient role throughout history.

Helmer in Ibsen’s play makes this point of imposing a subservience on women which has an implied sense that they lack intellectual capacity as he minimizes Nora through condescension. He calls her “The same little feather head.“ and makes statements like “That is like a woman!“, making diminishing commentaries and generalizations about the state of being a woman (Ibsen 6). While women have been considered the ’weaker sex’, during the time that Ibsen wrote his play women were gathering and making great demonstrations of strength towards accomplishing goals.

Most of these goals were based upon securing freedom from the oppressed. Many of the great social movements of history, particularly in the late 19th century when Ibsen’s play was written, were started and run by women. Suffrage, as it was experienced in England, was accomplished through hunger strikes that lasted for long periods of time with attacks made by guards to force tubes down their throats in order to force feed those who had starved themselves to make a point about women’s rights.

The abolitionists in the United States were primarily women who worked to keep the underground railroad open in order to smuggle slaves out of the south and into freedom. Women participated in openly and dangerously protesting slavery until it was abolished. When motivated, women have shown great strength of conviction against a patriarchal system that through most of history has kept them as chattel. However, oppressions within the domestic sphere have worked against many women as they have tried to free themselves from the social pressures of gender identity as it is interpreted as weakness.

In Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, he explores the differences between the domestic sphere and the public sphere as his female character, Nora, searches for emancipation from being subjected to infantilism which has led to her being treated as a child within her marriage. In an exchange about sweets, Helmer treats her like a naughty child, tempting her to admit to having gone to the confectionary to indulge in candy. He says that she looks uneasy and commands her to look straight at him to judge her honesty.

The text states “Helmer (wagging his finger at her) Hasn’t Miss Sweet-Tooth been breaking rules in town today?”