A Feminist Perspective of ShakespeareAlthough William Shakespeare reflects and, at times, supports English Renaissance stereotypes of women and men and their various roles and responsibilities in society, he is also a writer who questions, challenges and changes those representations. Her stories offer opportunities not only to better understand Renaissance culture, but also to confront our contemporary generalizations about gender, particularly about what it means to be a woman. In his time, Shakespeare seems to have raised questions about standard images of males and females, about what the characteristics of each gender are, about what is defined as masculine and feminine, about how each gender possesses both masculine and feminine qualities and qualities. behaviors, on the nature and power of a hegemonic patriarchy and on the roles that women and men should play in enacting the stories of their lives. Because feminist criticism today focuses on many of these same questions, we can bring such critical inquiry into the classroom by asking direct questions of and about Shakespeare's stories. Defining what a woman should be and do was an act of Renaissance culture, as it has been at other times. For Shakespeare, as well as for much of Renaissance society, women as feminine represented the following virtues which, above all, have their meaning in relation to the masculine; obedience, silence, sexual chastity, piety, humility, constancy and patience. However, gender characteristics were socially constructed and there was easy mixing of masculine and feminine traits in both sexes. Defining male and female characteristics allowed writers like Shakespeare to d...... society. The more you read about that period, the less clear the issue becomes. Works Cited Dusinberre, Juliet. Shakespeare and the nature of women. London: MacMillan Press, 1975.Hancock, Emily. The girl inside. New York: Fawcett Columbia, 1989. Jardine, Lisa. Still harping on his daughters. New Jersey: Barnes & Noble, 1983. Lenz, Carolyn, Ruth Swift, Gayle Green, and Carol Thomas Neely. The Woman's Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. U of Illinois, 1983. Papp, Joseph, and Elizabeth Kirkland. Shakespearealive. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.68-102.Rose, Mary Beth, ed. Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Syracuse Press, 1986.Schmitz, Connie C. and Judy Galbraith. Managing the social and emotional needs of the gifted: A survival guide for teachers. Minneapolis: Free Spirit Publishing House, 1985. 32-33.