Macbeth: Gender Roles In The 11th Century

In the 11th century, during Macbeth’s reign, there were great differences in how people saw gender roles. There was no women's right movements or female activists. While today’s women have made huge advances in achieving equality, in the 11th century, women were considered inferior to men in certain areas. Men were considered to be strong, and held the powerful and authoritative role in their families, businesses, armies, and in government, while women held less-powerful roles and were taught to obey their husbands. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth there is a swapping of gender roles. In the play, Macbeth possesses the traits of cowardness, and gullibility, which were traditionally attributed to woman, while the female character Lady Macbeth possesses

Usually women are seen as less influential compared to males, and are usually seen as the non-dominant member of the family. However in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the dominant member of the family. Lady Macbeth shows how dominant and influential she is when she forces Macbeth into killing King Duncan. At first Macbeth was very hesitant about killing Duncan. Even though Macbeth wanted to kill Duncan to become king, he was still uneasy about that idea due to his close relationship with the king as both a friend and a cousin. However, Lady Macbeth was power hungry to be queen, so she wanted Macbeth to kill Duncan in order to satisfy her wish. In an effort to change Macbeth’s mind, Lady Macbeth calls Macbeth, “a coward in thine own esteem (41, 47),” because Macbeth supposedly wants to kill Duncan, but he says he can’t do it, making him a man who is afraid to commit murder. Lady Macbeth also insults Macbeth by stating, “when you durst do it, then you were a man (43, 56)”. In this quote, Lady Macbeth questions Macbeth’s manliness by saying that he will never be a true man unless he kills. The talk given by Lady Macbeth finally convinces Macbeth to kill Duncan. If it wasn’t for Lady Macbeth’s intervention, Macbeth most likely would have not killed Duncan, but Lady Macbeth influenced Macbeth to kill. This proves that in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is the dominant

Gullibility is a womanly trait, because back in the 11th century, women were less educated and therefore perceived as less intelligent than men. The stereotype of women being less educated than men extends to the point that due to the lack of education, women will believe falsities and therefore be easily deceived. The gullibility gender role of women even goes all the way back to when the first ever woman, Eve, was deceived by Satan into sinning by eating forbidden fruit, laying the foundation for this stereotype. Macbeth shows that he is gullible when he succumbs to the prophecies of the witches. When Macbeth visits the witches for a second time, the witches tells him the prophecy: “none of woman born shall harm Macbeth (125, 91-92).” Little did Macbeth know, the witches were evil beings who told this prophecy to lure Macbeth into a false sense of security. This was a half-truth that Macbeth interpreted incorrectly. Macbeth interpreted the woman born prophecy thinking that because everyone is born out of a woman, nobody will be able to harm him since everyone is woman born, making him invincible. However, Macbeth’s interpretation is flawed because a person can be born out of a Cesarean section, a birth that is not out of a woman, such as Macduff, who ends up killing a Macbeth when he thought he was safe from mankind. This shows that Macbeth is gullible, because he allows himself to be deceived by the obviously malicious