A People's Rights Rant

So… The Age of Innocence and A Doll’s House, written by Edith Wharton and Henrik Ibsen respectively, are interesting to say the least. Both are well-crafted in their intent and their execution, in their social criticism and the reactions of their respective societies. These two authors were both certainly aware of what they wanted to say and of how the world around them would react—otherwise the works themselves wouldn’t have been written. And reading them, I find myself asking a question: have we really changed all that much?

Now, before you get on your high horse and lecture me on the improvement of women’s rights and all that, before you call me a raging feminist and completely dismiss my opinions, let me finish; women’s rights have come an incredible distance from the time that Wharton and Ibsen wrote their works. A great deal more women have a great deal more respect and opportunity and future—I get that. The United States alone has come a long way, and the world as a whole has taken a huge step forward, but overall, gender expectations and roles are still very similar.

Women are still the cooks, the cleaners, the ones responsible for their children; men are still the providers, the hunters, the head of the household—which is fine, but not all that different. Yes, women are able to be more independent, but no, men weren’t the only source of that problem. We are still expected to get married, to stay innocent, to bear children and be “good”—which is, again, fine, but not all that different.

Even disregarding women, thought, the roles of men have changed very little in the grand scheme of things. As previously mentioned, men are expected to provide for their families—it is both a necessity and a weight that they can neither fight off nor run from if they are to have a family. Society, as a whole, regards men as the champions of the home and the outside world—they don’t have a choice, it seems, to be anything but strong and independent. This sort of mentality is, within reason, not a terrible one. If they want to, there is absolutely no reason for a man to not be the head of the household, to be the breadwinner, and to be responsible for finances; the issue comes, instead, when the expectations are forced to extremes.

But disregarding my own social commentary, there is plenty to be said for Wharton and Ibsen’s books on the subject of gender roles. Archer describes May Wayland as a “darling” who “doesn’t even guess what it [the opera] is all about” (Wharton 4), while Torvald and Nora both refer to her as Torvald’s “little skylark” (Ibsen 12). Torvald rants on about the expectation of men to be the providers and instilled with good morals, while Archer recounts and fantasizes about “teaching” May—a phrase which holds a double meaning in-and-of itself. And while these two writers had astounding timing, hitting it off right as the revolution of human rights began, both were faced with considerable trials and judgments and protests.

In 2013, writings of the same general topic don’t receive as much public scrutiny, but the fact of the matter is that there is still backlash, instead of being judged as “out of place” because it goes against moral standing, they are judged for their independence and dubbed “tenacious” or “too feminist” (notice that books written on such topics typically don’t involve men’s rights—it’s almost always women). So really, at the core of it, has much changed?