Female Sexuality And Gender Roles In Shakespearean Society

Female Sexuality & Gender Roles in Patriarchal, Shakespearean Society In The Winter’s Tale and Measure for Measure, female characters play many roles and hold many positions in society. These two plays illustrate that while women still hold varying degrees of power and influence in a patriarchal, male dominated society, it becomes apparent that each woman’s struggle for equality and power is consistently stifled by male authority regardless of their position or class in relation to men. The dominance of females by male authority in these plays is demonstrated through the use of female sexuality, marital status and speech in regards to each woman’s separate and unique position in society. Regardless of each woman’s battle for power and control, each
Despite their strong, courageous voices in the play, the ideal image of women in relation to men remains unchanged.

Works Cited Digangi, Mario. “Pleasure and Danger: Measuring Female Sexuality in Measure for Measure.” ELH. Vol. 60, No. 3 (Autumn, 1993), pp. 589-609. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2873406 Greenblatt, Stephen. The Norton Shakespeare. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997. Print.
Rosenfield, Kirstie Gulick. "Nursing nothing: Witchcraft and female sexuality in The Winter 's Tale." Mosaic [Winnipeg] 35.1 (2002): 95+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 6 Dec. 2011. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA84213190&v=2.1&u=lom_nmichu&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w van Elk, Martine. " 'Our praises are our wages ': courtly exchange, social mobility, and female speech in The Winter 's Tale." Philological Quarterly 79.4 (2000): 429+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.