Are Shakespeare’s female characters a disservice to women or was he a feminist?

Four centuries after his death, the bard remains so popular that scholars assess his work is being performed or read at any given time in some corner of the world. William Shakespeare is credited for bringing to life some of the most complex female characters. Yet there is a strain of stereotyping in his work that continues today too.

While Gertrude and Lady Macbeth are equal parts ambitious, vulnerable and conniving, in Taming of the Shrew, a passive and obedient Bianca is the epitome of feminine grace and is pitched as the ideal wife; as opposed to Katherina who is strong willed. Portia, Rosalind and Viola needed to dress up as men to be taken seriously; and escape sexual violation.

“There is no doubt that Shakespeare did independent women a tremendous disservice by creating opposing stereotypes of ideal and an unacceptable personality traits for women in Taming of the Shrew,” says Dr Nilakshi Roy, associate professor of English Literature at Mumbai’s VG Vaze College. “But if we look closely, the cross-dressing women depended more on their wit and strength of character than their masculine appearance to emerge successful.”

Fiction writer and poet Rochelle Potkar wonders if Shakespeare was trying to push the definitions of gender by getting his heroines to cross-dress. “It could be a thumbing-in-your-face statement to male tyranny, of just how accepted a woman was if she donned the exterior of a man.” But some of Shakespeare’s heroines suffered worse fates and their stories appeared to justify honour killing. In Titus Andronicus, Demetrius and Chiron rape Lavinia. Her father goes to avenge her, but not before killing her first. While author Kiran Manral doesn’t endorse the misogyny, she lauds Shakespeare for exposing ugly truths. “There is no approval by celebrating the writing but an acknowledgement that this does exist and we do ourselves a disservice by pretending it doesn’t,” she says.

Potkar adds, “400 years ago, a daughter’s virginity and virtue were her father’s responsibility. Her sexuality was a commodity – a property to be either divested to another man in marriage or vanquished in death.” In that sense the story was an accurate depiction of the dark times when it was written.