"a doll’s house” novel review

“ A Doll’s House” is one of my favorite novels. Unlike other articles and books I have recently read, the theme of the story makes me think more deeply about gender issues, because this theme is still intimately linked to modern society. Although some of the gender issues related to women’s rights have relatively been resolved in the past few decades, there are still women whose rights are restricted or who suffer from feeling unsafe and unfair in some countries. Because the number of male executives, statesmen, and other posts who have a social power, authority, and influence has been predominantly larger than the number of female ones for a long time, women are inevitably given fewer rights, powers, opportunities for their advancement in society at both micro and macro levels. However, it does not necessarily mean that they have less ability than men, or they prefer to obey and follow men. The gender difference in the United States is typically thought of as being treated more fairly than other countries, but there are still limitations for their social advancement in various situations. I am writing to explain the reason I feel that the gender issues are still widespread and how they still bother women, providing with specific examples from the story and my personal experiences.

Women are less likely to have an opportunity for their career advancement. Glass ceilings is referred as an invisible but real barrier in an individual career stage and especially for women or other minorities, regardless of their abilities, talents, or efforts. They have surely existed between male and female employees, so that female employees cannot fairly achieve their career goals over their lifetime. I don’t quite understand the main reason why women are less likely to receive an opportunity for promotions, but the possible reasons I can think of include maternity and parental leave. In general, women took maternity leave before and after childbirth, but it does not seem to benefit the operations or profitability of corporations. Companies would not want to suffer from the shortage of human resources especially those at higher management positions such as director. In fact, interviewers often asked me if I’m married or have a plan to marry anytime soon when I was interviewed for job opportunities in Japan, my home country, probably because they considered whether I would likely quit or take a long leave after working for relatively short time of the period. This questions are not allowed to be asked during job interviews in the United States, but it is relatively common in Japan. Those factors not only upset a power balance between genders, but also result in a vicious cycle disturbing female advancement in modern society.

The inequality in the salary is another common type of gender issues in a workplace, and it impacts women of all ages, racial groups and educational attainments with unreasonable rewards. Even if women with the same set of skills with male employees work for as many hours as them, the unfairness in the salary is often seen in some countries. They do not prefer a lower-paying job or a part-time job, but there are certain reasons why women tend to be paid less, such as gender bias, which gives them responsibilities as wife and mother in modern society. Because of gender biases, women tend to be thought that they cannot fully devote to their employers like men do, but corporations look for employees who are able to fully commit to their work and devote their time. Regardless of the fact that the inequality has been dramatically diminishing in the past years and the number of opportunities available for women in education and social advancement has been increasing, it still appears to be persistent. We must eliminate these gender biases in order to attain our equal rights, treatment, and responsibilities for all people.