What do the Elizabethan period and our contemporary society have in common? When you consider all those moments in history they can be vastly different. However when considering the role of women in society and the expectations we cast on them, how different are they really. Today I will be exploring the role of women in society influenced through the media and by the ability to work, and questioning whether it has become better or worse over time. This theme is explored throughout Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
The role of women in society has evolved through the ability for women to work in the same job forces as men. For many centuries a woman was expected to live for the role of a housewife. Her only purpose was to tend for her family,
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Women can now work in businesses, or as tradies, and can even hold executive positions in major companies. We now have more choices. Gender equality has become more present in todays society and woman are now respected for being strong, and independent. These changes have provided new and exciting career opportunities for woman, however it has increased our responsibilities and expectations, both personally and by …show more content…
What does the media tell us about women? It tells us what is “most important” and that’s how we look. They surround us with images of ideal female beauty. We have been learning from such an early age, that we must spend our time to strive to be like the women in these images and to feel ashamed and guilty if we cant live up to these incredibly unrealistic expectations. But failure is inevitable, when the women we are being shown are photo shopped and airbrushed to seem thinner, with faces so flawless that there is not a wrinkle or a line to be seen. This idea of beauty that society is showing us is so edited that it can’t be achieved. Not even the women in these images we are being shown look like this. The media is beginning to dictate our lives, influencing our thoughts, opinions, and actions. Through this use of magazines, advertisements, and social media, we are being shown by society what we need to look like in order to be beautiful. Society challenges women to be strong and independent, by showing us that in order to be seen as the ideal female we have to look like a woman that has been altered with on a computer for hours until she doesn’t even look like
In the sixteenth century the role of women in society was very limited. Women were generally stereotyped as housewives and mothers. They were to be married, living their life providing for her husband and children. The patriarchal values of the Elizabethan times regarded women as the weaker sex.’ Men were considered the dominant gender and were treated with the utmost respect by females. Women were mainly restricted within the confines of their homes and were not allowed to go school or to university, but they could be educated at home by private tutors. Men were said to be the ones to provide for their families financially. Women were often seen as not intelligent. Property could not be titled in the name of a female within the family. Legally everything the female had belonged to her husband. Poor and middle class wives were kept very busy but rich women were not idle either. In a big house they had to organize and supervise the servants.
But, let’s focus more towards the gender equality which occurs nowadays. Gender equality plays a big gap in terms of the role of women in the Elizabethan era and the present days. Furthermore, it is an important role of every woman since they gain their justice for having a job or profession they liked or wanted, they are respected by their loving husbands, and they could speak courageously and bravely since they had their freedom; the right to speak up which was not usual or present in the Elizabethan era. Today “anyone could be anything” in many
Sixteenth century England was the Elizabethan era, with an unmarried woman as the Queen. Even though there was a woman on the throne, the expectations of women did not change and stayed very much similar to when men were King.
Why were women in the Elizabethan era treated so much different in the Elizabethan era? A very broad question, with many answers to it and many reasons too. As a student in 2017, I was shocked to hear how many women were treated many years ago. The things all women had to put up with in the Elizabethan era is dehumanizing to say the least. The role of women was to listen to men and let the men rule over them, but this was because they knew no better.
In Hamlet, Shakespeare portrays both Gertrude and Ophelia characters who wholly reflects “weakness …, lack of depth and vigorous intelligence” (223). Shakespeare does this in order to express his opinion that women in the Elizabethan period had no other choice than to be dependent on men, which is why they appear weak and unintelligent in the play. Shakespeare shows this through Gertrude by displaying her dependence on Claudius for her livelihood and social status. In the Elizabethan time period “all titles would pass from father to son or brother to brother, depending on the circumstances” (Elizabethi, para 5) although there may be women in the family, the men are always put in front of the
“What is a beautiful woman?” (Darius Washington 2014) There are a lot of deep scars in society. Thanks to the media, we have become use to extremely unrealistic standards for beauty. The exemplary that has been dragging society down for the past few millennia is that everything is wrong with you and you need to change yourself to be accepted as beautiful. The media is driving the public’s view of beauty by sending strong messages about physical perfection everywhere we turn. To certain people the media is considered the most influential education resource in today’s
For many years in the past women played a small role socially, economically and politically. Many works in the literature demonstrate this during the Elizabethan Era. In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Ophelia, Hamlet’s love and the daughter of Polonius is a prime example of this and he forbids Ophelia to see Hamlet because of the possibility that he implore her name and her virginity. Ophelia truly loves Hamlet and is devastated when he shuns her and pretends to be mad. She is affected by many of the decisions and actions of the male characters in the play, including Hamlet, Polonius and Laertes. Throughout the play, women are very dependent on men. Men felt superior to women during Hamlet's lifetime, in which they thought that they could
Today, we are always surrounded by a variety of media and we identify ourselves in parts of those images we see. Media believes women should look like Victoria Secret models: tall, lean, and tanned women, but lately there has been issue from women all over the world who are tired of having to be set at impossible types of female figures. Revolving around a certain type of body figure is horrible because bodies come in different shapes and sizes. The media has influenced the female body perception by showing that women need to have a “perfect body” to pass in society. These magnificence gauges, multiplied through the media, impacts affect women and their self-perceptions. The medias influence on female body image has led to eating disorders, dissatisfaction in women, depression, and substance abuse in women.
Since the beginning of time when humans began to walk the Earth women have always been stuck in the household doing things to help make the house life better and easier to live in. With women being set to only do house work they began to adopt and fine-tuned many skills that had been genetically implanted and treaded in their minds throughout the centuries. For the last 150 years women have slowly inched and fought their way into the workplace alongside men. With the beginning of the Industrial Revolution a long dormant spark in women began to finally show its true colors, and women finally understood that it was time for them to move out of the home and into the workforce with women. With the introduction of factories and better way of
Women have had significant changes in their lives from the past to present in terms of employment as they are more and more being moved away from the household, being able to work like regular men today. Proportion of women in the total workforce is increasing and consequently they compete successfully for higher income jobs such as chief executives. They even have been moving into jobs that in the past were only allocated to men. While these signs are encouraging, women are still paid less than men with a fewer rights and low protection in the workforce. The progression of gender equality still appears uneven, although many women have seized opportunities and are slowly evening up the workforce and deserving the equality they have struggled for ever since the beginning of the twentieth century. Women in executive positions, even in major corporations are exposed to the daily sexist and diminishing behavior from men, leaving women powerless and vulnerable in their attempts to earn their place in the future society. Even though many women in their adolescent years excel in their educational training, their achievements and general attainments are not rewarded properly as the levels of salary are not exactly the same as for men once the workforce is reached. By a sheer determination and eagerness to learn and improve, women are earning their place in the society pushing the boundaries and reinforcing their rights to be
Media has taken over the United States as well as other developed countries, and it is impacting females greatly by diminishing their self confidence, and self esteem which is leading to many big, unhealthy problems. Actress and makeup artist, Eva Devergilis, says each time any woman comes and sits in her chair, they apologize for their looks no matter what age, race, weight, etc. they are because the bar for beauty in women is set so high that no one person is satisfied (Ozborne). Lucy-Anne Holmes said, “One gender is allowed to be fully clothed, look old and be overweight while the other isn’t. The impact this has on girls and young women is sad and unfair,” (Martinson). This is true because the idea of men and beauty is set a lot looser,
Throughout history, poetry and English have been a common facet of society. During, the Elizabethan Era, Shakespeare became a popular poet performing at many places, the most significant being the Globe Theatre in London. Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's best works, will be studied in this report in terms of theme, message and idea's relevance to a contemporary society. During the Elizabethan Era some of the themes which were important included the ways of tragedy, corruption, power, cruelty, masculinity, kingship and tyranny. However, in a more contemporary society the issues of masculinity, kingship and tyranny do not provide people with a strong impact on our contemporary society which is unlike the themes of cruelty, tragedy, corruption and
The Elizabethan era ran from 1558–1603. The reason it is named Elizabethan is because Elizabeth I was on the English thrown at the time. The arts flourished under the control of Elizabeth I. The Queen was an excellent scholar and a keen supporter of all the arts including theatre. Her personal love for poetry, music and drama encouraged a period where it was fashionable for wealthy members of the public to support and appreciate the arts.
Men and women have established gender roles in all sorts of things throughout history. Since the beginning of theatre, women have faced a large gap when it comes to every aspect of acting. Women were not allowed to perform, write, or help with any parts of the plays. In the present times things are different and the gender bias of men and women in theatre will be discussed further on. Women have faced challenges in theatre since it has been around, but the beginning of theatre, the Elizabethan era, and the present could have changed if women weren 't faced with gender obstacles.
Elizabeth’s reign was seen as a golden age for England, the court becoming the focus of intellectual achievement (The age of Shakespeare. A British council exhibition 12) Being herself one of the most educated people of the sixteenth century, an outstanding diplomat and a polyglot, Elizabeth had encouraged the development of arts and culture. It was a period in which the art flourished. Under her reign the theater gain an important place in the life of Londoners, the first theaters, or playhouses being opened in London during the late 1500s. People went to see plays by William Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd, and Christopher Marlow. ( Riley 7) The Elizabethan people, freed from poverty and living in a period of peace and order “felt the upspring of