PHOTO BY KATE ROBINSON
The subject of Ibsen’s A DOLL’S HOUSE(Goodreads.com feminist books #36) remains controversial and relevant over a hundred years since its original publication and theatrical debut. The play tells the story of Nora, a woman who decides she must leave her husband and children to find who she is. Women are particularly critical of other women who would, as they put it, abandon their children. Women understand and support fellow women who leave bad marriages and relationships, as long as the departing woman has her children in tow. Society allows the double standard of men leaving without condemning them in the same way.
Nora’s character, in Ibsen’s play, sees that she has sacrificed her identity, first to her father as she sought his approval, and then to her husband, whom she married in a continued effort to please her father. By the end of the play, Nora realizes she does not know who she is and decides she must leave to discover herself. Critics of the play remark that Nora is not exhibiting responsible, adult behavior by leaving, but rather claim she exhibits the impetuous behavior of a child. I believe these critics miss the point, since Nora leaves exactly because she is not developed as an autonomous woman. In fact, the play’s title tells us that Nora is not even a child, but rather an inanimate object: a doll within her marital and family homes.
In February of this year, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto wrote an article for Salon.com about leaving her children to pursue her career. The article and Rizzuto’s choice met with negative commentary by readers and was even taken up by the general media in the U.S. Ms. Rizzuto was called selfish and some readers even wished pain and suffering upon the author.
Ayelet Waldman published BAD MOTHER in 2009. Her book met with criticism from women who derided Waldman for her claim that she would rather have her children die than her husband, and her confessional statement that she loved her husband more than she loved her children. Interviews with Waldman addressed the negative public reaction to the book. Women accused Waldman of being a vile human being whose children, they felt, should be taken away from her.
As we consider the strides women have made over the last hundred years: securing voting rights, narrowing the pay gap, and increasing their ranks in executive, academic and other career arenas, they remain somehow still stuck in the doll house. Men leave without lasting stigma, stigma that is also not dished out by fellow men, regardless. When women “break ranks” and leave children behind, other women denigrate them.
I read a quote once (that I cannot locate now) that gets at the heart of the hypocrisy of this double standard. The quote talked about how we revere men such as the Buddha or Gandhi, who essentially leave their families to do great work, yet we never credit women who would do the same. It would seem that from the time of the historical Siddhartha Gautama, and likely before, men have been and continue to be lauded for their accomplishments, even if they can only perform these feats of greatness without a family in tow.
Women continue to be vilified for not being infinitely available to their spouses and children. Thus, A DOLL’S HOUSE resonates today as we designate women like Rizzuto and Waldman as outcasts. Rather than lash out at these women, we might better serve all women by getting to the root of what it is that bothers us so personally about their choices. I am just as guilty of indignation, as this was my initial reaction when I learned of a friend’s wife leaving their children. However, considering Ibsen’s play, Rizzuto’s article and Waldman’s book, I need to reflect and search for the real reasons I find women leaving their families so repulsive. Is my immediate reaction merely the result of societal conditioning? And, while leaving my children is not something I would consider for my own reasons, is it really something I should demand other women not consider? Why do we, as women and within Western society, condemn women for leaving their children? It seems simple to say that once one becomes a mother, a different standard applies, yet we do not exact this same standard from fathers whether they are contemporary men or historical figures. Why is this? What is it that we fear that causes almost visceral reactions to a mother’s leaving? There are no easy answers to these questions. It is only through dialogue and introspection that we might come to understand our reactions so that we might then also understand other’s decisions, thus finally freeing women from the doll’s house.
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