As was previously stated, the term “feminism” was not used during the Elizabethan period, or during any of Shakespeare’s life. It was first used by the French philosopher, Charles Fourier, in 1837. Nevertheless, the idea of feminism did exist, even if not to the full extent of today’s society. Today, feminism can be defined as a commitment to closing the gap of inequality between the sexes (Red Letter Press, 2007). Although there are multiple approaches to how equality between the sexes can be reached, the goal remains the same. Before society can decide to make women equal to men, they must first accept that women are equal in humanness and value as men. As the famous suffragist, Rebecca West, once said, “Feminism is the radical notion that women are people” (Red Letter Press, 2007, para. 1). Of course, during the Elizabethan period, whether women and men were equal could be a difficult question to answer because although their beliefs in a universal hierarchy caused their answer to automatically be “no,” there being a (successful) woman on the throne perhaps caused them to question their beliefs. Perhaps they saw Elizabeth I as an exception to the general rule. Perhaps Elizabeth was a stronger type of woman as opposed to their wives and daughters. Shakespeare, of course, played with this idea of whether women and men were equal. Almost all the women in Shakespeare’s plays were dependent of some male figure. The few who were free of a male’s will – Olivia and Viola from Twelfth Night, Portia in the Merchant of Venice, Anne from Richard III, etc. – are still subjected to society’s view of what role they play as women. For instance, Olivia does not know what to do without a male telling her what to do, so she shelters herself off from the world; Viola has chosen to live her life mourning the loss of her brother (until she finds a better motive for living); Portia’s destiny has been previously decided by her dead father, and Anne is quickly wooed (perhaps out of convenience) by Richard once her husband and father-in-law are dead. Although they do not have a male’s physical overbearing, they know what they must do in order to maintain the order in the society they live in. In a criticism of Troilus and Cressida, Gayle Greene states that Cressida lives in a society “that values her little yet insists that she be as she ‘is valued.’ In response to this, Sharon Harris says that, “It is not woman who creates chaos in society, but rather man’s devaluing of her that does so” (Harris, 1990, p. 76-77).
One story that is of particular interest is the Taming of the Shrew. In this story, Katherine is the most evident shrew. She is, at first, a very rowdy, intolerant woman who refuses to summit to anyone’s authority, including any of the men who try to woo her (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2014). To today’s society Katherine might seem like an independent woman. To the Elizabethan’s, however, she is a rebellious woman who needs to be put in her place by a male. In order for her to be tamed, she needs to be married; except, no one wants to marry her. There is one man, though, who out of personal interest decides to woo her and make her marry him. He is successful not only in marrying her, but also in taming her. He does not feed her, he isolates her, and treats her horribly until she has no choice but to submit to his will, and respect him as her husband. He is so successful, in fact, that at the end of the play, Katherine reprimands two other women on how much their husbands deserve their respect and full obedience (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2014). In this way, Katherine may be seen as an independent woman who was eventually broken and shaped into the woman her husband wanted her to be. This again emphasizes Shakespeare’s ability to push the social boundaries, but never quite cross them (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2014). Although Katherine is so unruly at the beginning that even her father has granted her the free will to choose who she will marry, by the end of the story she has been tamed to fit societal norms. This is Shakespeare’s way of making sure that he brings everything back to order (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2014) – although not the order the modern audience prefers.
One story that is of particular interest is the Taming of the Shrew. In this story, Katherine is the most evident shrew. She is, at first, a very rowdy, intolerant woman who refuses to summit to anyone’s authority, including any of the men who try to woo her (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2014). To today’s society Katherine might seem like an independent woman. To the Elizabethan’s, however, she is a rebellious woman who needs to be put in her place by a male. In order for her to be tamed, she needs to be married; except, no one wants to marry her. There is one man, though, who out of personal interest decides to woo her and make her marry him. He is successful not only in marrying her, but also in taming her. He does not feed her, he isolates her, and treats her horribly until she has no choice but to submit to his will, and respect him as her husband. He is so successful, in fact, that at the end of the play, Katherine reprimands two other women on how much their husbands deserve their respect and full obedience (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2014). In this way, Katherine may be seen as an independent woman who was eventually broken and shaped into the woman her husband wanted her to be. This again emphasizes Shakespeare’s ability to push the social boundaries, but never quite cross them (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2014). Although Katherine is so unruly at the beginning that even her father has granted her the free will to choose who she will marry, by the end of the story she has been tamed to fit societal norms. This is Shakespeare’s way of making sure that he brings everything back to order (Shakespeare & Bevington, 2014) – although not the order the modern audience prefers.