Do Societal Pressures Cause Scarlett And Nora To Behave The Way They Do?

How societal pressures cause Scarlett and Nora to behave the way they do? How much of their behavior is that of their own choice or that of expectation?

“A Doll’s house” a play written by Henry Ibsen, and “Girl’s like that” by Evan Placey, are two plays that has over 100 years’ time difference since they were both written and published; yet they both have a number of similarities, as well as some major differences.

Both plays has both positive and negative views when it comes to the subject of Feminism. For in the “A Doll’s House” the lead woman is called Nora. Nora is set in the late 19th century, around 1879, in Norway. This was a time period before woman had been given their rights, so Nora was expected to be house wife, who was not allowed
to be treated as an equal to men, as seen in Act 1 where Nora is speaking to her husband Torvald and he describes her to be his songbird without a thought in the world. She also is to be expected of being inferior even to other women, such as when Mrs.
Linde, a childhood friend of Nora’s, says to Nora “Oh it’s so sweet of you, when you know nothing of the world”. Mrs. Linde underestimates Nora despite just seeing her for the first time in years because their society tells them that that is the way Nora is supposed to be, young and naive, only primary focus is her family, when it may not be. Nora feels dissatisfied with being underestimated and feeling inferior, which is why she had gone behind Tovald and her father’s backs to get a loan, which in turn saved Torvald’s life. It was her own personal achievement, the first time she had acted out against what society thought was correct, she felt like her secret had saved her husband, making them both equals, without his knowledge. Nora says to Mrs. Linde, “Oh you shall look down upon me, but I have something to be proud of too”. This shows how Nora knows it is against what most people believe, yet she didn’t want to be undermined by someone who she felt as though they could understand and compliment her; of course this somewhat backfired when Mrs. Linde thought that she should have told Torvald. However Nora wants to appear vulnerable and naive
whenever she encounters others, especially Torvald, because in their society women are inferior and are expected to only function with the help of their husbands. Nora knows that Torvald describes the idea of taking money out on the house as “disgusting”, especially if done by a woman, and the fact that Nora had forged her father’s signature made Nora realize that the consequences would be dire if Torvald were to find out. Torvald, upon knowing the truth could leave Nora, leaving her without a breadwinner in the family, or maybe even possibly taking out his anger in force upon her, as she is like Torvald’s property since they are married. No matter the consequence, it was a matter worse than death, which is why thoughts of suicide had run through Nora’s mind after being threatened by Krogstad, who threatened to tell Torvald the truth and hurt their whole image.
So, in short, Nora, although she longed for equality and acted out against the “norms” of her society to fulfill a sense of self satisfaction, had to create a mask of a perfect stereotypical wife in order to make others around her, and her society and set of ideals and “norms”, happy. Which is a good view on how life for women in those times used to be and how inferior they were compared to the men.
In “Girl’s like that”, the woman, Scarlett, a young girl who happened to have her nude pictures leaked on the internet and throughout her entire school. When her photos went viral Scarlett was viewed to be a “sexual object” by her peers, immediately after the so-called “scandal”, Scarlett, is named to be a “Slut” “Whore” and other sexual yet offensive terms, because she is a woman who did not have a boyfriend, who sent photos of herself. No one was entirely sure of what the entire story was yet they all jumped to a negative conclusion, especially since Scarlett used to be very unpopular. However, the guy who had sent her photos around had had his nudes leak as well supposedly by Scarlett, because she wanted revenge, so if she did what he did to her it’s bound to have the negative attention away from her right? Wrong. What happened? Nothing, he was called a “stud” and “good looking”. With the idea of Feminism, although our society has grown a lot since the 19th century, we still hold unfair double standards against women. Scarlett and the guy had had the same thing done to both of them, yet since Scarlett was a girl she was shamed for it, and since the guy was a man he was praised.
This just goes to show that over the years, yes women may have gained rights, and yes, as far as equality goes between genders, society has never been better; yet there are still double standards, women are still being oppressed, because that is what our society tells us when it comes to what is wrong and what is right.