# It's time to admit it: Taming of the Shrew is horribly misogynist **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 26, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912 "2017-06-26T14:39:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/1 "2017-06-26T14:39:31Z")
…and there’s nothing we can do to “fix” it. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the A plot is a man who decides, sight unseen, to marry a woman, just because she’s rich, despite warnings from his friends that she’s a “cursed shrew”. He comes to an agreement with her father, whereupon the wedding is set for a few days later, against her will. He then proceeds to break her through a combination of starvation and sleep deprivation until, by the end of the play, she’s a good docile wife willing to go along with everything he says, even absurdities like calling the Sun the Moon, or addressing a man as a woman. This play is often referred to as “problematic” or “difficult”. I saw a production of it on Saturday where the director cast it mostly with women, in the hopes that that might change how it’s viewed. It didn’t work. The previous production I saw, the director’s statement said something about how she views it as being actually about female empowerment (with no explanation for how that could work). Nope, sorry, it’s not. The simple fact of the matter is that the play is that it’s not “problematic” or “difficult”. It’s just plain broken beyond repair. Its message is that women should be mindless extensions of their man and master, and that if they’re not, they should be tortured until they are. I know people don’t want to say that about the greatest author in the history of the English language, but it’s true. Does this mean that Shakespeare himself was misogynist? I don’t know; I’ve never met the man. Maybe he was just writing to suit the tastes of his patron at the time (who I’m guessing wasn’t Elizabeth), while holding his nose and stifling his own opinion. Regardless of the origin, however, it’s clear that the play itself is misogynist. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/2 "2017-06-26T14:46:01Z")
That’s like saying a grandfather clock is broken because you can’t change the time on it via an app on your iPhone. _The Taming of the Shrew_ is a product of the time it was written and originally performed, and if you had tried to critique it back then using the concepts you just brought up, your audience might well have considered _you_ to be broken. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/3 "2017-06-26T14:51:17Z")
OK, true, it’s still an accurate representation of the attitudes of its time. But its time is not our time, and such attitudes are much less relevant today. I’m not saying we should drop it entirely into the Memory Hole: It is still of value, after all, to understand how our forbearers thought. But there’s no need to accord it any special respect just because it’s Shakespeare. After all, there are other Shakespeare works we’ve mostly abandoned: When was the last time you saw a performance of _Titus Andronicus_, or _Troilus and Cresseda_? So let it be with _Shrew_. ---
**Author:** ![lilihob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a9adbd/32.png) [@lilihob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lilihob)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/4 "2017-06-26T15:00:28Z")
A few years back, I saw a production of shrew where the actress playing Katherine went with an interesting slant. She played her, as broken by the end, scared, mind fucked, and battered. Somehow thinner and smaller, pitiful. The male actors at the end were braying, cocky, immensely punchable. It was deeply disturbing and kinda brilliant. I wouldn’t watch it again though, it made me cry. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/5 "2017-06-26T15:09:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > After all, there are other Shakespeare works we’ve mostly abandoned: When was the last time you saw a performance of _Titus Andronicus_, or _Troilus and Cresseda_? So let it be with _Shrew_. I’ll admit to not being a scholar of Shakespeare and mainly having an “I took English classes in high school & college” level understanding but I assumed that people still read & performed _The Taming of the Shrew_ was because it was an interesting story with well-written lines. Plays we’ve abandoned were those which failed to catch the public’s eye, not ones we shoved into the back of the closet because they upset modern mores. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/6 "2017-06-26T15:10:41Z")
Back when I was an undergraduate, the dramatic society at Wellesley put on a sex-reversed version of _Taming of the Shrew_, with all roles sex-reversed and some liberal rewriting (all the “Kate/cat” jokes became “Petrucchio/peter” jokes). It was interesting. John Cleese performed Petrucchio played straight (well, as straight as anyone can play him) on a version broadcast in the US on PBS. In an interview about it, he acknowledged that many people tried to somehow alter the production to make it more acceptable to modern audiences, but he thought very little of these attempts to mollify the audience, and insisted on playing it as written and intended. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/7 "2017-06-26T15:11:57Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, true, it’s still an accurate representation of the attitudes of its time. But its time is not our time, and such attitudes are much less relevant today. I’m not saying we should drop it entirely into the Memory Hole: It is still of value, after all, to understand how our forbearers thought. But there’s no need to accord it any special respect just because it’s Shakespeare. After all, there are other Shakespeare works we’ve mostly abandoned: When was the last time you saw a performance of _Titus Andronicus_, or _Troilus and Cresseda_? So let it be with _Shrew_. Titus was made into a film very recently starring Anthony Hopkins. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/8 "2017-06-26T15:15:56Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Titus was made into a film very recently starring Anthony Hopkins. Well… for the proper definition of “recently”. It WAS in 1999. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/9 "2017-06-26T15:26:46Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Back when I was an undergraduate, the dramatic society at Wellesley put on a sex-reversed version of _Taming of the Shrew_, with all roles sex-reversed and some liberal rewriting (all the “Kate/cat” jokes became “Petrucchio/peter” jokes). It was interesting. [hijack]How did/do they cast the male roles? Did they import actors from other schools, or just use female actors for all parts? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/10 "2017-06-26T15:49:53Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Does this mean that Shakespeare himself was misogynist? I don’t know; I’ve never met the man. Maybe he was just writing to suit the tastes of his patron at the time (who I’m guessing wasn’t Elizabeth), while holding his nose and stifling his own opinion. Regardless of the origin, however, it’s clear that the play itself is misogynist. I doubt there was a man alive at the time who, by the standards of today, would not be considered a misogynist. ---
**Author:** ![Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/marvin_the_martian/32/2898_2.png) [@Marvin\_the\_Martian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marvin_the_Martian)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/11 "2017-06-26T16:01:48Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Well… for the proper definition of “recently”. It WAS in 1999. Hey, meets _my_ definition of “recently” - if something happened since I graduated high school, it is by definition “recent” regardless of how old I am. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/12 "2017-06-26T16:04:02Z")
Wouldn’t take too much modification to have mainly the same play but Katherine turns out to be pulling the strings in the end and showing the other wives how to do it. ---
**Author:** ![Sunny\_Daze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunny_daze/32/438_2.png) [@Sunny\_Daze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunny_Daze)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/13 "2017-06-26T16:07:36Z")
**OP** - did you really not know this before now? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/14 "2017-06-26T16:31:16Z")
> [@muldoonthief](#): > > [hijack]How did/do they cast the male roles? Did they import actors from other schools, or just use female actors for all parts? IIRC, they had women playing all the parts. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/15 "2017-06-26T16:49:09Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Wouldn’t take too much modification to have mainly the same play but Katherine turns out to be pulling the strings in the end and showing the other wives how to do it. At least one reader _at the time_ thought that Katharina wasn’t remotely tamed; John Fletcher wrote a sequel, during Shakespeare’s lifetime and probably with Shakespeare’s blessing, in which Petruchio’s second wife gives him his comeuppance. Katharina is dead before the play begins, but one of the things we do learn is that everyone wonders why Petruchio wants to marry again when his first wife didn’t give him a moment’s peace 🙂 As a Shakespeare professor, my experience has been that some students do read the play as horribly misogynist, some students (including ones who openly identify as feminist) see it as a lively, over-the-top romantic comedy about two people who don’t really fit in their society but turn out to be improbably right for each other, and some see it as _depicting_ misogyny but not necessarily _endorsing_ it. All of these are totally plausible interpretations that can work in performance, and you don’t particularly have to wrench the text to make any of them work. (Just to add a layer of added interpretative complexity, the whole thing is a play-within-a-play – there’s actually a frame story, which often gets cut in performance, where a passed-out-drunk man gets dressed up as a lord for a prank, and the main plot is actually presented as a play performed for the “lord’s” entertainment – a funhouse-mirror version of reality rather than reality itself. Noticeably, a LOT of what goes on in the frame story is also about performance vs. reality; specifically, the page boy who has to play the “lord’s” wife gets detailed instructions on how to do a convincing impression of wifely obedience, with the implication that real women are performing too.) (As a side note, _Titus_ and _Timon_ certainly do get performed on a reasonably regular basis; the RSC has a production of _Titus_ running right now, and _Timon_ just ended at the Folger.) ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/16 "2017-06-26T17:18:01Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Well… for the proper definition of “recently”. It WAS in 1999. In old ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Stranger\_On\_A\_Train](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stranger_On_A_Train)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/17 "2017-06-26T17:30:02Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Does this mean that Shakespeare himself was misogynist? I don’t know; I’ve never met the man. Maybe he was just writing to suit the tastes of his patron at the time (who I’m guessing wasn’t Elizabeth), while holding his nose and stifling his own opinion. Regardless of the origin, however, it’s clear that the play itself is misogynist. Frankly, we know very little about Shakespeare that does not come through interpretation of his plays and sonnets and from the instructions in his will, including conjecture over his arrangements to his daughters and their issue and the infamous bequeathment of his “second best bed” to his wife (although that may not be as meaningful as many care to believe). _The Taming of the Shrew_ is a comedy (in the classical sense of the term, as well as containing many witticisms) but like many of Shakespeare’s comedies it takes much pleasure in the misfortunes of the characters. Much of the modern criticism is focused on the treatment of Kate, but Bianca is as much treated as chattel as well, and not one character really comes off as being all that sympathetic. Given the mores of the day, this is about what can be expected from the play. I think it can be somewhat redeemed by treating the final scene in a winking, trenchant fashion but that is obviously not the original intent, and frankly it is far from my favorite play. However, none of Shakespeare’s plays has a more discordant ending than _Measure for Measure_, where Vincentio has manipulated the entire situation apparently for the purpose of humiliating Angelo and proposing to the very much younger and somewhat naive Isabella, which is pretty fucked up by any standard. Stranger ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/18 "2017-06-26T17:43:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **John Mace** : > > I doubt there was a man alive at the time who, by the standards of today, would not be considered a misogynist. I don’t know; I imagine there were quite a few who had mastered the fine art of “Yes, dear” for the sake of domestic tranquility. But even granting that most men were misogynists by today’s standards, there’s still a lot of room between “more misogynist than modern standards” and “as misogynist as _Taming of the Shrew_”. Compare some of Shakespeare’s other plays: In _Much Ado about Nothing_, for instance, it’s pretty clearly Beatrice who gets the better of Benedick, overall, and in _The Merchant of Venice_, Portia is the only one who’s able to unravel the mess the menfolk have gotten themselves into. And in fact, in the plays in general, if there’s a conflict over who ends up with whom, it’s generally resolved according to the women’s preferences. **Fretful Porpentine** , I’d never heard of the framing story before. One wonders why it’s not more popular, given so many directors trying frantically to cast the story in a different light. It sounds like the framing story would provide a lot of opportunities for that. (and I must admit that I’m not sure whether the performance I saw used the framing story-- We had a heck of a time finding parking, and so missed the first several minutes) ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/19 "2017-06-26T17:52:37Z")
This is news? When John Cleese starred in a version in 1980, he appeared at the beginning to say that it was sexist. And in the plot, it is. But for most of the play, Katherine is a strong woman who takes no crap from anyone. The ending, of course, is a big problem and certainly is a bit cringeworthy. But it’s less sexist than something like, say, _The World According to Garp._ ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2017, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912/20 "2017-06-26T17:57:50Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I doubt there was a man alive at the time who, by the standards of today, would not be considered a misogynist. I suppose it could be argued that no man (or woman for that matter) in a historically patriarchal society could ever be **entirely** non-misogynistic. But there were certainly predecessors and contemporaries of Shakespeare whose attitudes towards women were far less misogynistic than those portrayed in _Taming of the Shrew_. E.g., Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, who wrote [On the Nobility and Superiority of Women](http://mrdivis.yolasite.com/resources/Agrippa%27s%20feminism.pdf) (1529): > [@](#): > > _Agrippa argued against the misogynistic interpretations of the female body in Greek medicine, in the Bible, in Roman and canon law, in theology and moral philosophy, and in politics. He raised the question of why women were excluded and provided answers based not on sex but on social conditioning, education, and the prejudices of their more powerful oppressors._ > > "The excellence, goodness, and innocence of women can be amply enough proved by the fact that men, not women, are the origin of all evils. In fact, the first human creature, Adam, because he dared to transgress the law of the Lord, closed the doors of heaven and made us all subject to sin and death. For we have all sinned and we die in Adam, not in Eve. […] > > "Hence, all the prisons are filled with men and all gallows everywhere are laden with corpses of men. > > "Women, to the contrary, have invented all the liberal arts, every virtue and benefit […] > > “But since the excessive tyranny of men prevails over divine right and natural law, the freedom that was once accorded to women is in our day obstructed by unjust laws, suppressed by custom and usage, reduced to nothing by education. For as soon as she is born a woman is confined in idleness at home from her earliest years, and, as if incapable of functions more important, she has no other prospect than needle and thread. Further, when she has reached the age of puberty, she is delivered over to the jealous power of a husband, or she is enclosed forever in a workhouse for religious. She is forbidden by law to hold public office; even the most shrewd among them are not permitted to bring a suit in court. […]” Or Francois Poullain de la Barre, who wrote [On the Equality of the Two Sexes](http://blog.le-miklos.eu/wp-content/Poullain-EgaliteDesDeuxSexes.pdf) (1676): > [@](#): > > The best thought that can occur to those who strive to attain solid knowledge, after having been instructed according to the common method, is to question whether they have been well taught, and to wish to discover the truth for themselves. > > In the progress of their research, it will necessarily come to their notice that we are full of prejudices, and that we must absolutely renounce them in order to have clear and distinct knowledge. […] > > Of all such prejudices, none has been found more appropriate to this endeavor than that which is commonly held about the inequality of the sexes. […] > > After having examined this opinion in accordance with the rule of truth, which is to accept nothing as true that is not founded on clear and distinct ideas, in the first place it has revealed itself to be false, and founded on prejudice and popular tradition. In the second place, it is found that the two sexes are equal, that is, that women are as noble, as perfect, and as capable as men. […] So I think it’s a little too glib to dismiss critiques of the misogyny in _Shrew_ with a shrugging _“Meh, but everybody was misogynist back then”_. In fact, western intellectual discourse of the 16th and 17th centuries contained quite a wide range of views on the nature and proper role of women. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-time-to-admit-it-taming-of-the-shrew-is-horribly-misogynist/789912.md?page=2)