” A woman cannot be herself in the society of the present day, which is an exclusively masculine society, with laws framed by men and with a judicial system that judges feminine conduct from a masculine point of view.”
To what extent are Ibsen’s word still true today?
To a certain extent, Henrik Iben’s word still takes place in today’s world as there are many nations where gender inequality is still prevalent. However, his words are not completely true in the present day. Globally, women’s rights have been in the spotlight and many countries are aiming to resolve all the problems related to women’s rights.
Even today, there are still many countries that restrict women’s rights, mostly due to religious aspects as seen in Middle Eastern countries. One pertinent country would be Saudi Arabia where there are wage gaps up to 56 percent and women cannot even travel “without male consent.” In addition, they have no freedom to choose a marriage partner and they have the highest women unemployment rate in the world. Much of these inequalities stem from a society that is guided heavily by religious guidelines. Besides the Middle East, even places like Singapore have gender inequality to some extent. According to The Straits Times, women in Singapore earn 13 percent less than men as the gender wage gap still persists. Perhaps this can be explained by the difference in education and experiences. However, some are paid less simply because they are female. This means that the unexplained wage gap could be attributed to factors such as workplace bias.
However, Due to Many developed nations fighting hard for equal rights socially and in the workplace gender inequality has come a long way since the early 20th century. For example in Canada, one of the most developed countries in terms of human rights and equality, they have already had a long history of creating gender equality throughout their society: “It’s been 103 years since women were allowed to vote in elections.” This quote shows that Canada has already made progress with women’s rights while other countries were not even close. Moreover, compared to many other countries Canada’s wage gap is less: “84 cents for every $1 earned by men for the same job.” Even though there might be a slight wage gap, access to education is equal, which can lead to opportunities for higher-level employment. Therefore, the wage gap might just be an indicator of women being at a slight disadvantage to their male counterparts perhaps due to having children and fulfilling parent duties that could interrupt their career.