Treatment Of Women In The Elizabethan Era

Women in the mid-1600s to mid-1700s underwent pivotal changes. While these changes would alter their roles in the colonies, certain aspects of their responsibilities remained the same.

My first viewing of the 1967 film, The Taming of the Shrew, highlighted the misogynistic treatment of women in the Elizabethan Era. When Petruchio enters the scene, he is searching for a wife and does not care about how difficult she may be. When he hears about Katherina and the inheritance he will receive if he is to

Throughout the Elizabethan era, men had more advantages than women. William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew has characters such as Petruchio, Baptista, Katherine, and Bianca that show how men overpowered women. During the Elizabethan era, there was heavy sexism. Women were discriminated. Through Shakespeare’s language, men could speak to and about women in a disrespectful and derogatory manner. Women were voiceless and deprived of their right to speak. Women were inferior to men. During the Elizabethan era, through Shakespeare’s language, and in Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, it is proven that men had more advantages than women.

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.

In John Osborne 's 1956 piece, Look Back in Anger, housewife Alison Porter is faced with the difficult decision of remaining in a toxic marriage or returning to live with her parents. Indeed, Alison is the archetype of the 1950s British woman, as depicted in both academic and popular discourse—meek, miserable and resigned to her fate as mother and housewife. While such a paradigm of the 1950s woman has long remained unchallenged, historians have begun to suggest that this stereotype is inaccurate and misleading, and overlooks the complexity of female gender roles during Britain of this era. When reviewing the literature on this topic, what emerges as a clear point of tension between academics is whether the 1950s was a static or a dynamic

As the years progressed from the 1700s into the 1800s, women started to see that they were not treated as equal as men even though they could do anything men could. During the late 1800s was when women first started to fight for more rights and equality. They started forming more and more women groups, and even went on labor strikes to protest the diversity. Although it seemed that as hard as they tried to gain this equality, the harder it was for them to obtain it. They were treated horribly and unequally to men. While African American men received the power to vote in 1870, women still did not have a chance at that right. Even though many people disagree that women were treated fairly, the studies show that they were discriminated against. The treatment of women in the late 1800s was discriminatory because they

Some critics and other readers of Shakespeare's plays argue that he treats women with disrespect. However, he actually treats them with a great amount of respect. Shakespeare has been criticized by many modern writers for his portrayal of women.

In the winter of 1691 through 1692, some of the afflicted girls were with the house slave, Tituba, reportedly were playing with fortune telling techniques, such as a “Venus glass” in which the girls dropped an egg white into a glass of water so that a shape or symbol would take form to learn about their future husbands. The church was the cornerstone of life of the 17th century New

Every single human being, at some point in their life, has had a role model. When Queen Elizabeth was at the peak of her rule, she was a huge role model for many women across the nation. She ruled a prominently male dominant society. Women like Beatrice, strong and independent, were not common. The more normal example of a women of those days would be Hero. Hero is a quiet character who does what she is told. Beatrice, when this play was first written, was found comedic. In contrast to today, Beatrice is respected as a strong women. Shakespeare uses Beatrice’s independence to contrast Hero’s obedience and toys with the social standards of the Elizabethan society to make his play the one of the best comedies of his time.

Religion played a major part in the gender roles during Queen Elizabeth I’s rule. During this era, the Bible was interpreted to make women look and seem weak compared to men (Loades & Trow, 2011). One of the reasons for this dates back to Adam and Eve. In the book Genesis, Eve allowed Satan, in the form of a serpent, to seduce her into eating an apple from the Tree of Knowledge, the one tree she and Adam were not supposed to eat from.

Women and men’s role in Elizabethan society is completely different to modern society. The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare shows exactly what the attitudes were like. For example, the scene when Katherina is fighting with her sister because Bianca has a number of suitors waiting for her but she refuses to tell Katherina which one she prefers. Katherina gets angry and aggressive towards Bianca because she doesn’t give her an answer, Katherina starts to attack Bianca. Their father enters into the room and says “For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit! Why dost thou wrong her that did ne’er wrong thee? When did she cross thee with a bitter word? Baptista is expressing why Katherina would

After a separation of several centuries, attitudes between the sexes have changed either significantly or rather little in either direction depending on where one resides. In Shakespeare’s time, women were considered little more than property to be exchanged between her father and her possible husband to be. Those women who wish to escape such burdens had little other options. All they had was other disinheritance or the convent. Katherine Baptista in The Taming of the Shrew tried to fight such emotion oppression on her own terms the best way she knew how, by being so feisty and untampered that many men chose to run away from here. It would take another man willing to be paid to attempt to win her so that another can marry her sister

As many may think, women weren’t as important during the renaissance period. Some seem to believe that women had it easier than they do today. Some even believe that they had much more power and independence. If only that were true. Women who showed too much independence, sexual or otherwise, were punished and sometimes even killed (Wiesner 59). Women were made to be seen as saints and remained loyal to one man. During the renaissance period, women went through many hardships and many things were expected of her by her family, as well as her husband. You might ask, what was marriage, education, and employment like for women during the renaissance period?

Defining what a female was supposed to be and do was an act of Renaissance culture. For most of Renaissance society, women represented the following virtues which, importantly, having their meaning in relation to the male; obedience, silence, sexual chastity, piety, humility, constancy, and patience. The most important being sexual chastity and piety.

Upon receiving an assignment to find and perform a monologue from Shakespeare’s plays, I was delighted, but quite quickly, my happiness turned into a frustration. In my research of finding Shakespeare monologues, I had read many wise words written by Shakespeare. Much to my dismay, however, many of these “wise” and intelligent sounding monologues were the monologues of male characters. By the third hour of my search, I was ready to throw my laptop out the window and scream, “Do you intend to tell me that there are only a few school appropriate and lengthy monologues in all of Shakespeare’s plays that demonstrate the strengths of female characters!” But knowing the time period that William Shakespeare had written in, I put no blame upon