Gender roles deteriorate women’s rights (Community Identity and Culture)

This is my individual oral for English and language SL. When a man is oppressed, it's a tragedy. When a
woman is oppressed, it's a tradition. A quote said by Letty Cotton, an American author, briefly
summarizes the context of this individual oral. As I shall express and analyze two different works, one
literary, the other non-literary. The literary work is A Doll's House by the playwright Hendrik Ibsen, and
it was made in the 1900s. The other text, the other non-literary text is an ad campaign of a body of work
under the title In a Parallel Universe made by a Lebanese photographer called Ali Rizkallah. By analyzing
the stylistic devices, the content and theme, and the purpose and audience as depicted in both texts, we
shall discuss how both texts convey the global issue of community, identity, and cultures throughout
how gender roles hinder and deteriorate women's rights in societies.

By first summarizing the events of A Doll's House, it starts off as a play where a woman borrows money
from a man, which in the context of Ibsen's playwright's society, is an act that is against her husband's
pride because she borrowed from a strange man. Then later she demands her independence from her
husband after she realizes the oppression she had been feeling all these years without actually realizing
it. By starting off with the first stylistic device, we can see that the extensive use of metaphors when her
husband Torvald calls her in, I quote, little squanderbird, little squirrels, and little spendthrift, he is
clearly belittling her and metaphorizing her to animals, which clearly shows his feeling of superiority and
his dominance over her. Another stylistic device were the consequensive usage of rhetorical questions.
When Nora thinks that she had broken the pride of her family and that she is toxic to her children, that
she cannot raise them anymore. When she keeps saying, “what if I go crazy, what if I” and etc. This
monologue clearly uses pathos to appeal to the audience that women could be psychologically
oppressed without actually realizing it and hence this stylistic device enforces the author's purpose of
raising awareness of how women could be oppressed in societies. As for the content and theme of A
Doll’s House, there are numerous symbols, one of which is the macaroons were a source of joy in Nora's
life, and that she was ready to give it up for her husband's pride, which shows that men are actually
superior than women, and that women might give up some of their joys in life in order to satisfy men's
feeling of dominance. Mrs. Lindt, another symbol in the play, shows the theme of inverse gender roles,
as she works for her own money, and she proposed to Crocs' dad, which by the context of this play is an
inverse role in society, because men are known to propose to women, not the other way around. All in
all the purpose was well focused in this play and it showed that patriarchal societies actually might
induce psychological problems within women which would not realize it until it's too late, as we have
seen with Nora. I mean the playwright Henrik Ibsen chose to end his play in a way that Nora at the end
demands her independence and that he suggests that all audiences including women should also
choose a similar path and demand their independence, hence raising of awareness.

As for the other non-literary work, it's basically an original ad from the 1900s, a sexist ad made by Van
Heusen, a clothing company, where its header says “Show Her, It’s a Man’s World”, that referring to
women as her in the third person only enforces the fact that women are unimportant and that men are
addressed directly and that actually achieves the purpose of this ad back in the 1900s because it was
made in a culture that believes that men are superior. There are numerous symbols in this ad such as the
tie the man wears which depict his work and his superiority to the woman. The food the woman offers
to the man in the ad shows that this is the only role women should play in the society back in the 1900s
and the kneeling is significant due to the fact that the woman is actually showing that she is inferior to
the man who is superior, laying in bed, crossing hands, and with a face of pride. The purpose of this ad is
to appeal to man of the time which believed that they were superior to women, and yet it had a side
effect of that purpose, and that was the impact of women psychologically at that time. It was not fair for
women to see such ads because they would feel inferior and they would be hurt psychologically, and
women represent almost half of the human race, and therefore it is significant as a global issue. As for
the inverse ad made by Ali Rizkallah, we can clearly see that he has switched the gender roles and he has
made the woman lie in bed wearing the tie, the man kneeling beside her and offering the food, and all
these symbols are simply reversed in women's favor. He made these ads to raise awareness of current
societies and cultures to be to be acknowledged of the fact that women were oppressed back in the
1900s and therefore they should not be furtherly oppressed nowadays and it had huge impact in
current-day societies due to the fact that it appealed to the audience as queer, simply since the roles
were completely reversed, and people were not accommodated to these visuals.

All in all, as we can conclude, that both texts, although they were different in their approaches and
elements. They both succeeded in addressing a major global issue, which was how the gender roles
deteriorated women's rights in societies. And that's it. Thank you.