"What a difference! Someone to work for and live for—a home to bring comfort into" (Ibsen 55). A Doll’s House is a play mainly about the confinement of housewives and their gender roles. Wollstonecraft refers to women’s societal roles as “Chinese foot binding” (Wollstonecraft 594). Chinese foot binding is when women break their feet and put them into tiny shoes. Mary Wollstonecraft and Henrik Ibsen have many similarities and differences on femininity. Although Wollstonecraft and Ibsen agree on many points, they agree on three considerable main ideas, using beauty as power, gender roles, and education.
Both Wollstonecraft and Ibsen critique using beauty as power. For example, women must stop using “the arbitrary power of beauty” (Wollstonecraft 593).Women need to prove that women can reason like men. We are all human and we capable of having the same thoughts. If a man said one statement he would be heard, but if a women says that same exact statement then people may take it the wrong way. Another example is “flowers wilt like women’s beauty” (Wollstonecraft 593). Men need to realize that women don 't always look pretty when they get older. People get wrinkly when they get older. Most men back in the 19th century had a trophy wife. Trophy wives aren 't good because the man doesn’t really love her. He only has her to show her off and to make people think they have a great life when they might not. Torvald married Nora because he wanted to look good in front of other people