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Gender roles in the Renaissance
Gender roles in the Renaissance
Gender roles during renaissance europe
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Women In The Renaissance. Do you think women should be allowed on stage to perform and act? Do you believe that women should have just as many rights as men? Well during the renaissance women could not perform or act on stage nor did they have any rights, keep reading on to find out why and what they had to do. “The women were not allowed to star in plays mainly because they were poorly educated and they had no education so they wouldn't know what to do” found from Why Were Women Not Allowed To Act In Shakespeare’s Plays Back In Elizabethan Era? Women could not act on stage during the renaissance for many reasons people believe women did not act because women didn't have any rights, they also had no
The young men voices were still high pitch and bodies had not been matured, so the role of women was perfect for them. William Shakespeare took a big part in theatre during the Elizabethan Era and his work is still popular till this day. Most plays that you often hear about such during the 1600’s were pretty much his. One of his most famous plays that still grab reader’s attention is Romeo & Juliet. Another thing about the Elizabethan Era was the way they said their words, what they would do is use a four count beat and pitching their voices high and low. All through London theatre was very popular. In the 1600’s during the Elizabethan Era instruments had also played a big part in their time. Like once before I told you that any instrument could play a ...
Richmond, Macrae Hugh. "Women's Roles" Shakespeare's Theatre: A Dictionary Of His Stage Context (2004): 502-504. Literary Reference Center. Web. 31 Mar. 2014.
During Shakespeare’s lifetime, women were seen as second class citizens, which meant that they did not have a say in society. Women were seen as slaves, which is surprisingly not portrayed in the play. This may be because Shakespeare may have been influenced by the way that Queen Elizabeth ruled England before James I. he may have chosen to portray Lady Macbeth to be strong willed and powerful, just like the previous queen which may have influenced Shakespeare’s work.
Of course to an Elizabethan audience, this would not have come as a surprise, because the roles of the women in Shakespeare's plays were prominent for the time and culture in which their society lived.
The Renaissance was beneficial in many ways, from its enlightening ideas, to its art. However, there are many debates about how The Renaissance changed the lives women. Did women benefit from The Renaissance?
Women in different societies around the world, during the Middle Ages, experienced different hardships and roles. These hardships and roles helped shape how they were viewed in their society. Some women were treated better and more equal than others. In Rome, Medieval England, and Viking society, women’s legal status, education, marriage and family roles were considered diverse, but also similar. In certain nation’s women have more or less power than women in other nations, but none equal to the power that women have in America today.
Cloud, Amanda. Gender Roles of Women in the Renaissance. n.d. Web. 7 Nov. 2009. < http://www2.cedarcrest.edu/academic/eng/lfletcher/shrew/acloud.htm >.
Shakespeare, one of the most famous play writers in history, wrote Macbeth in 1606. Many women were not allowed to perform in plays during that time period; however, Shakespeare did have very few females act out roles in his play (Shakespeare: Sample). Shakespeare viewed his women as strong-willed individuals (“Macbeth.” 227 ) when in reality they were often gone unrecognized (Women in Anglo). The character, Lady Macbeth, was a frightening, ambitious woman. Lady Macbeth often wished to “unsex herself” to carry out the killing of King Duncan on her own as her husband showed no manly characteristics to do it. Women during the Anglo-Saxon time period however, were way different then the way Shakespeare viewed his women during his time period.
In the Elizabethan period, it was "forbidden" for women to appear on stage and considered "immoral", and so boys played...
The attitude towards women, their treatment and their rights, underwent many changes during the Renaissance. During feudal times women were given more liberties and enjoyed freedoms. They could own land and had many of the rights men had. However, this period where so many great changes had been made in the church, in literature, and in all other artistic areas, women took a big step backward in their fight for equality.
The Women of Othello All through history, the role of women and their place in the general public has tremendously changed. William Shakespeare’s Othello was established during a time period where the role of women and their collective value were downgraded in the Venetian and Elizabethan era. During the Venetian era, women were dominated by their sexual orientation. The Venetian era had a patriarchal society.
The Renaissance was simply “the green end of one of civilization's hardest winters” (Robert 10). In other words, catastrophic events swept through Europe such as the black plague, warfare, and starvation causing a high population of death rates. After an era of destitution, the Renaissance was a period of “rebirth” where individuals could express their intellectual thought through art, science, literature, and education. It’s true that people during that time express humanist ideals of individual achievement, but does the word “individual” contribute to both men and women (Ramirez 439)? As a result, in what ways did the Renaissance world view influence or impact social issues such as gender equality? The Renaissance highly influenced gender equality especially in terms of marriage, wealth ownership, and freedom of expression. With this is mind one should question, “did women have a Renaissance” (Kelly 1) or exhibit the same privileges as men?
During the times in which Shakespeare lived, women had certain roles which ensured they were a permanent underclass to men. In Women in Shakespeare’s world by Theresa D. Kemp, Kemp states that “The roles of early modern women included daughters and wives, sisters and mothers; they learned and worked and played but for the most part they were not expected to be school girls (whining or otherwise) As women they were expected to be the slightly beautiful beloved and not the balladeer. Women were not seen as fit to play soldier or the judge. And as keepers of the homes and the households, as in our own time, women withdrawn from a “world too wide” ( 29). This quote from Kemp shows how victorian women were seen a just a pretty face to do as told. They were to be obedient and non opinionated. A woman of that time period was very objectified and used, basically women weren't real people.
This is to be expected in a society that did not even permit women to perform in theaters, so men played the women’s roles. Women were not allowed to perform on stage until 1660 when Charles II took the throne and the Restoration occurred (Nestvold). Hence, women are often restricted by husbands or fathers, like Juliet who was controlled by her father in Romeo and Juliet, or women are victimized by men and not in control of their own fate, like Desdemona who dies at the hands of Othello in Othello.
As you can see, some critics and readers of Shakespeare's plays feel that he discriminates against women, while others think that the way he writes shows that women are self dependent and are able to support themselves. Readers criticize Shakespeare because he does not show a great amount of respect towards women and does not appreciate them and also how they act. For a very long time, Shakespeare had boys play the roles of women, and excluded women from all of his work of literature. Then there came a time when Shakespeare finally allowed women to have parts in his plays and participate in his work.