Liza Donnelly is a political cartoonist whose work aims to bring criticize, bring awareness of the problems of different social or political issues. She is the author of 17 books and is best known for her works in ‘The New Yorker’ and as a cartoonist of CBS news. Many of the political and social issues drawn by Liza Donnelly revolves around feminism and global women’s rights. She is famous for including humourous points in her drawings, which often hints the harsh realities around these issues, which then brings to resentment towards the readers and ones who are especially involved directly with what Donnelly is trying to bring awareness to.
In this political cartoon, it shows the desperate, helpless and sad situation that many women go through in the modern world today. Although this cartoon does not consist of any style of humor, the piece of work lets us see this issue through multi perspectives of methods in which gender roles & identities are socially and politically constructed. The painting of an Indian lady describing the helpless situation in New Delhi, how they are “forced to live with” violent sexual assaults such as groping, hostile advances, threatening looks and words, which brings the dark truth out to the surface and exposes the dirty reality inside the country. The painting of an Indian girl not only shows the plight of women in New Delhi but also in other parts of the world such as the US, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Saudi Arabia, the United Kingdom, etc. Donnelly portrays symbolism in order to show the current position of females in society, which is shown by the drawing of the lady. Although the illustration of the black woman may seem normal, the fact that she sat down defenselessly without being able to do anything implies how women are not seen as equals with men and through this, they are treated as the non-dominant side of a relationship between man and woman. Humour is a factor that can be used to ease the tension and conflict within these social and political issues, but at the same time bring out the awareness without going over the line with excessive humor.
