In Liza Donelly’s political cartoon she seems to address an issue rooted within our society. We tend to categorize people into many categories, gender being one of them. This is a natural occurrence and one that cannot be avoided. In Donelly’s cartoon, she addresses the issue that we tend to characterise things that have no gender, or are incapable of choosing their gender, as male. This is an issue as it represses women and tends to further support our male dominated society.
The cartoon portrays two, what appears to be females, clothing and making a snow-person. At the bottom of the cartoon we can see a dialogue occuring between the females and the snow-person, where the snow-person says “What makes you assume that I’m a snow man?” The dialogue presents the issue of how we categorize things primarily as males, and how that is unfair. As the word man is underlined in the dialogue, it places an important emphasis on the idea that the snow-person is a man. The comic is very satirical as it shows how we have forced a gender upon an inanimate object, and that the gender that we have given that object is male. Given that the snow-person is somewhat objecting against being labelled as a man is quite funny considering it has no gender or capability of thought. Furthermore the fact that it is two women, one being an adult, the other being a child, that is dressing the snow-person, it shows how the issue of labelling things as masculine is such a deep rooted issue within our society, that even those of the opposite gender, naturally label things as male instead of female. It shows how even though objects may be inanimate, we still tend to categorise them as males due to the dominance of males in our society,
The cartoon portrays a harsh truth within our society, hence why this comic requires some context to be able to understand it. As males have had a dominant role throughout history, our society has been constructed in such a way that it views male as the dominant gender. The result of this is that we label things that would have no gender as male, whenever we need to assign a gender to something, we tend to label it as male, as that is the society that has been provided to us. Without the context of what our society is like and the subtle (or sometimes not subtle) male dominance within it, it would be near impossible to understand the contents of the political cartoons, and the message entailed within it. The comic presents a question that seems silly, but unearths deep rooted flaws within our society, why isn’t the snowman, labelled a snowwoman, or a gender neutral term? The question is silly because we call it a snowman because it just is a snowman, that is how we have been raised, we’ve been raised in a way that when we see three balls of snow piled on top of each other it is just a snowman, no questions asked. When we begin to ask the question why is it a snowman, it presents a myriad of complex issues deeply rooted in our societies, but these issues are taught to us from the day we are born, making it much more difficult to overcome the issue of male dominance in our society. Just causing the change from snowman to snowperson is seemingly insurmountable, it would require to change nearly everyone’s typical label for one small object, and will likely need a change in culture as a whole, in order to achieve this feat. As we are taught as children to label certain things as male, and taught subtle nods to male dominance, becoming aware, and overcoming male dominance in current day society is much more difficult than it should be.
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