In what ways does this cartoon offer perspectives of the ways in which gender roles and identities are socially and/or politically constructed?

In this cartoon made by Liza Donnelly, at the right three quarter of the picture we can see a group of men in big chairs sitting around a huge oval table in the middle of a room. All six of them are wearing elegant suits and ties, they are dressed professionally. Some of them have bald heads or wear glasses, which suggests that they are around their 50s, or above. Their appearance, supposed age and their environment, the big table with some neatly arranged paper on it suggests that through the cartoon, we get a peek into the meating of the managers of the company.  Around the table, at the right side there is one chair empty. All the men sitting are turning their heads in the direction of the empty seat, which aligns with the direction of the door of the room, where a man,partially dressed as a woman stands. On his upper body, he is wearing a man shirt and a jacket, paired with a tiny skirt and a pair of high heels. He is standing alone in the door, looking anxious in the crossfire of the confused and shocked look of his colleagues. The capture at the bottom of the cartoon quotes the man sitting at the main table, who is sazing: “I’ve asked Harold to provide the feminist viewpoint”.

Satirical humor is used in the cartoon, as the weirdly dressed man in the right side of the picture, wearing the mini-skirt and the high heels is meant to be the representation of a feminist in the eye of one of the man talking, who is supposed to be the leader of the meeting, due his position at the table. Maskulinity, and the misunderstanding of the idea of feminism is being mocked here, while a more serious point is also made, since the only way a woman could get to the table of the men in the cartoon is a man wearing a skirt, and ‘representing’ a woman.  This reflects how the male and female gender roles, and the expectations coming with them even though have changed a lot during the last decades, are still at most places around the world does not let women have equal opportunities in life to men. Even a bit more than a century ago, women were supposed to attract their fellow husband while they were young, get married, and after doing the household work, give birth to children and then take care of them, furthermore be a supportive and caring wife for the family. They were not supposed to go to school, not supposed to have a job, earn money but rely on their husband in everything. 

Feminist movements, which originally started during the second half of the 19th century, and are still continuing nowadays have evoked big changes in the way how society precieves women and their rights. In most parts of the world now women have voting rights, can attend universities together with men and can have a career. Although, as the cartoon puts it in the spotlight, there is still a lot to do and fight for until women would have equal rights to men.  If we look at statistics made based on the proportion of genders in any kind of leadership positions, we would see that there are way more men there, than women. According to the man who’s speaking on the picture, a feminsit is a skirt and a pair of high heels. He sees a feminist as a women, or the acceccories of a stereotipical women, but since the meeting is about business, ‘men’s business’, would not even let a woman come close to the table. Rather asks his colleague to dress up as a woman, humiliates him, but sticks to the old, and million times proved to be wrong stereotypes that women have nothing to do with leadership, important work decision making. 

To my mind, besides the visual and obvious humor presented in the caricature, it adds another layer of ironic, more complex humor to the cartoon. What might only be understood with having some prior knowledge about gender stereotypes and feminism. It presents how despite all the fight, all the amazing women who showed to the world that females can be just ‘as good as’ men, prejudices and biases still exist. And they categorise gender roles. They categorise not only how a woman should look, act and behave, but also, how maskuline, powerful, man should. They are deeply rooted in history, and have been present in our society that removing them  takes tremendous amounts of time. Generations were raised to believe that women have less rights than men, and these generations taught their children the same values. With the time passing, and women right movements getting more attention in parts of the globe, mindsets have shifted, but not in everyone, and most importantly, unfortunately not everywhere. The change may have started, since ‘at least’ a women perspective is even taken into consideration at the ‘men’s table’, in the cartoon, but the aim and the end of the road is still far ahead, until everyone will recognise that having a feminist point of view is not equal to wearing a skirt.