Gender Stereotypes In Shakespeare's Othello

In the play, The Tragedy of Othello, Shakespeare uses Desdemona and Othello’s relationship to demonstrate how patriarchal attitudes encourage women to fulfill stereotypical roles for their surival, prolonging female inferiority. Thus, the effect of patriarchal attitudes persist in modern society as seen in the creation of the term, “battered woman syndrome” in the 1970s. Othello verbally insults Desdemona, saying “Heaven stops the nose at it, and the moon winks/ Is hushed within the hollow mine of earth/ And will not hear’t. What commited?/ Impudent strumpet” (Shakespeare 4.2.132). Yet Desdemona consistently defends Othello to Emilia telling her, “Nay, we must think men are not gods/ nor of them look for such observancy/ As fits the bridal/

Similarly, Desdemona, aware of Othello’s anger through his verbal outburst, alters her behavior by conforming to general female stereotypes for her safety. She commends him and remarks that she should not have high expectations for him. While Desdemona may believe she made the right choice to defend Othello, she fails to consider that her choice will cause Othello to never reflect on his treatment of her and therefore, continue to insult her. Desdemona excels at assuming her role as a faithful wife which fits the female stereotypes during the Elizabethan period that Shakespeare reveals through Iago’s monologue when he outlines an extensive list of expectations for women. However, Iago ultimately claims that a woman who fits his list of expectations if “she was a wight” qualifies “to suckle fools and chronicle small beer” (2.1.59-60). Iago explains that a woman's purpose involves her reproducing children and raising those children as housewives, a universal standard for women that prevails in modern

Thus, to not disappoint the men in control, women learn to obey the expectations of men, submitting themselves to stereotypes due to their inability to assert themselves and share their sentiments. Female suppression enforces the dangerous stereotypes about women in a patriarchal-dominated society because following the example of their mothers’, and out of fear of breaking stereotypes, the next generations of females learn to act as their mothers, leading to prolonged stereotypes against women and the need for terms such as battered women syndrome. Battered woman syndrome stems from one of its symptoms, learned helplessness. As mentioned in Walker’s book, in an experiment where “dogs were trapped in cages and given inescapable random shocks,” after a while, the “dogs stopped attempting to leave the cage even though escape routes sometimes were provided” (Walker’s ). Learned helplessness relates to the generational persistence of domestic violence in relationships between men and women due to female