By Sampada Aggarwal

Abstract

This article examines the evolution of gender roles through references and ideas discussed in Henrik Ibsen’s, A Doll’s House, and an advertisement campaign by the organisation PPS, that features advertisements with words used to devalue women in a manner that reflects their value, potential and power. It aims to reappropriate phrases of prejudice and paternalism to challenge the stigma surrounding working women and open a dialogue around gender stereotypes.

Judith Butler argues that ‘masculine and feminine roles are not biologically fixed but socially constructed’. Inspired by her quote,  I have chosen to examine constricting gender roles, with the help of an advertisement under the field of inquiry of Culture, Identity, and Community. This global issue is important to me because the ravages of gender construct even in modern times affect me and others around me.  I see women in India being tied down to familial duties while the burden of earning a living still falls on the shoulders of men. While reading Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, the theme of gender roles stood out as the most relevant issue to me. The play revolves around the marriage of Nora and Torvald Helmer which comes under threat from a series of external events. But at the heart of it, there is a lack of mutual trust and respect within the marriage because of the facade that Nora wears to live up to the gender roles and Torvald’s strict adherence to these roles. The title of the text itself hints at Nora’s lack of agency in the marriage. A Doll’s House is symbolic of the passive role of women during the Victorian period much like how dolls are owned and controlled by others. Towards the end of the book, she points out that she has been treated like a doll,  a plaything her entire life, first by her father and now by her husband. The use of the word doll envelopes multiple aspects of Nora’s gender performance. While around her husband,  Nora is a dutiful and cheerful wife, behaving like a life-sized doll. Her performance does not come as part of her biological gender since we see throughout the text that there is more to Nora’s personality than just being a loving and caring wife and mother. It is the constant indoctrination and conditioning within the society that makes her perform the role of a good wife and mother while her efficiency is debatable. Her final rejection of these roles to fulfil her duty towards herself is a very powerful statement made by Ibsen. Another point in the play that brings forth the issue of gender roles is the scene where Nora buys a doll for her daughter as a Christmas present. The doll acts as a motif that foregrounds the theme of gender indoctrination from a young age. Ibsen’s humanistic ideology comes across in the text where he considers women to be just as human, who have more to themselves than the roles they are expected to perform because of their gender.

Over a century later, numerous radical texts challenging gender roles and stereotypes have been published worldwide. I came across a series of posters by a South African company called PPS that fit the bill. The posters aim to break gender stereotypes and their impact on roles in society and stigmas set against women in workplaces. The chosen advertisement challenges the traditional epistemology around the idea of gender and uses language to undercut and tackle the stigmas around working women. Statements such as “she’s always overthinking”, “she likes to argue” and “she needs her own space” tackle negative labels associated with women and reformulate them positively to convey an empowered image of a working woman in various professional fields ranging from law to technology. All the posters use the technique of paraprosdokian, a figure of speech that twists a phrase in unexpected ways, leading to a surprising, often humorous outcome. This literary device uses the element of surprise to help engage the audience and upend their expectations to create a dramatic effect. This helps puncture and undercut prevalent misogynistic ideas. This technique is effective because not only does it convey a positive message in the latter part of the text, but it also comments on the condescending and noxious image of gender roles that the aforementioned phrases convey. 

A common thread across the chosen poster and the others from the same campaign is the posture of the women. They are all straight-backed, looking directly at the audience. Each woman oozes confidence and hence the images work to subvert the idea of women being meek and vulnerable. The camera angle is at eye level which conveys emotional neutrality and subsequently highlights the professionalism of the posters.  The chosen poster appears to be set in a child’s bedroom, as indicated by the plush toy animals kept all around and the size of the furniture. The upright posture and unemotional demeanour of the lady in the poster indicate that she is a professional as opposed to a mother who would be expected to have a softer and more sentimental demeanour.  By breaking the stereotypical image of the woman as only a nurturer, the poster is shattering the gender role of motherhood associated with women. The camera angle focuses on the lady, drawing the attention of the audience to convey her importance as the subject of the poster. Whereas if it were a mother in the setting of a nursery, her role would not have been as powerfully projected as that of a pediatrician. The woman in the poster is not subdued by the elements within the room that are symbolic of a child. This leaves an impression that women are more than simply the idea of motherhood and all the societal expectations that are imposed on them which they must live up to. 

The diction in the poster forms an essential aspect of analysis. Statements such as “the kids are her job” represent the gender performance expected of women by social institutions like marriage. Another instance from the doll house that is similar to this is when Torvald reinstates this idea when he says that looking after the kids is ‘for mothers only’. By undercutting the words, “the kids are her job” with the phrase “because she’s a pediatrician”, the creators have cleverly turned around a sexist sentence to highlight their potential to step outside the sphere of domesticity by being a professional. The former sentence is not only highlighted but is also in a larger font size than the latter. It could be symbolic of the overbearing prevalence of the sexist mindset of people. The smaller font size of the latter phrase could be symbolic of the minuscule shift in perspectives and the long road that women empowerment has to cover to reach its goal of completely changing mindsets and subverting gender roles.  Furthermore, the presence of each lady’s name at the bottom provides credibility to the poster and comes under logos as a means of persuading the audience by appealing to their logic. It instills the idea that women, in reality, move beyond stringent gender roles and pursue successful careers. The intended audience of these posters could be women in the workforce who wish to subvert the notion of gender performance and make a mark in different fields based on their skills as human beings.

This brings me to my conclusion. Ibsen’s text brings us the problematic nature of gender roles in his time and he also uses Nora’s character to critique the same. He uses Nora and Torvald’s relationship to comment on the skewed perspective of society regarding roles for men and women. The posters, on the other hand, are more direct in undercutting gender roles. While these posters are emblematic of the positive shift in perspective, the fact that such posters still need to be produced conveys that there is still scope for improvement. It is interesting how the two texts were produced over a century apart and in different countries. Yet, the issue of men and women being restricted by gender roles and stereotypes continues to remain relevant in both texts. Even though it is said to be openly addressed today, in the Victorian era, not much has changed because there are people out there who still believe and support the stereotypes against women. 

Author’s Bio

Sampada Aggarwal is a second-year student at JSGP, majoring in economics. Aggarwal is passionate about working towards advocating for LGBTQ+ rights and helping break the stigma around mental health and disability through her work. 

Image Source: MARKLIVES