Is Shakespeare a feminist or anti-feminist?

Answer 1

It really depends what you look at, and what your preconceptions are. A lot of attention is paid to The Taming of the Shrew, but that is only one play, and the only one in which Shakespeare appears to strongly endorse the extremely submissive role for women. But then there is The Merry Wives of Windsor, in which the women are far from submissive and in fact repeatedly take the mickey out of the men. You can say that Hero and Helena are doormats, but then look in the same plays and you will find Beatrice and Hermia.

One recurring feature of Shakespeare's plays is to make fun of the then common wisdom that women will, given half a chance, cheat on their husbands. Shakespeare's plays are full of virtuous and faithful wives who are wrongly suspected by their husbands: Desdemona, Imogen, Hermione, and Mrs. Ford spring to mind. Shakespeare repeatedly makes the point that suspicious husbands wrongly hurt their wives with their jealousy. There are only two adulteresses in all of Shakespeare (Goneril and Queen Margaret) and innumerable unfaithful and inconstant men. As he has Orsino say, "For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn Than women's are."

There is this too: Shakespeare consistently supports the idea that girls should choose their own mates. When their fathers (or occasionally mothers) try to choose for them, it is always bad news. Think Romeo and Juliet. Think about Anne Page. Or Hermia. In all these cases, we are invited to support the romances the girls choose for themselves and reject the arranged marriages. But curiously, in the one marriage that is arranged for a man, we are clearly invited to support the arranged marriage, even though it is arranged without consulting Bertram at all, because Helena desires it.

All of these things suggest that Shakespeare was more of a feminist than an antifeminist.