Gender Roles During The Elizabethan Era

William Shakespeare, one of the most influential writers in history, is well known for his comedy, romance, and tragedy plays. Macbeth, written in 1606 during the Elizabethan Era is one of his most popular tragedy plays that follows along the story of the main character Macbeth and his uprise and downfall as the king of Scotland. Similar to Shakespeare’s other plays, gendered language is intentionally and persistently used throughout the entirety of the play. In Macbeth, Shakespeare's portrayal of Lady Macbeth's attempts to manipulate her husband illustrates the damaging effects of patriarchal gender roles on both men and women during the Elizabethan Era.

During the Elizabethan Era, gender roles were rigidly defined and strictly enforced.

The promotion of male dominance and supremacy over women created direct oppression, depriving women of autonomy, dehumanizing them, and denying them basic human rights (Shanette). However, the negative effects of the patriarchal conceptions of gender were not limited to just women, as the strict requirements placed on men to conform to traditional masculine ideals, such as aggression, dominance, and emotionlessness, were also dehumanizing (Munn and Richard). For women, their dehumanization presented itself in the form of objectification and commodification. And, for men, it did so in an animalistic way that stripped them of their ability to express a full range of human emotions, leaving them confined to a narrow and harmful conception of manhood that required aggression and dominance over others. To conclude, the pervasive and destructive nature of patriarchal gender norms during the Elizabethan Era illustrates how they acted as a constraint on both men and women’s capacity to fully express their

However, he does so in a way that makes her defy the patriarchal standards set on her as a wife during the Elizabethan Era, while also conforming to them. At the beginning of the play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s relationship is unusual, as she appears to take on the more dominant role in the relationship. However, later in the play, it becomes clear that her actions were all motivated by supporting Macbeth in becoming king—not with her own interests in mind. This creates immense complexity in her character because, given the time period, it was unusual for a wife to play the dominant role in a marriage but it was expected that she prioritize her husband’s ambitions and happiness rather than creating and striving for her