Female disempowerment through sexual interaction in "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" by Shakespeare

Essay , 2021 , 8 Pages , Grade: 2,0

English Language and Literature Studies - Literature

The essay deals with the oppression or emancipation of women in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream”.
The essay will have a look at three scenes within which sexual intercourse is implied. In them the threat of male dominance to females within sexual relationships both physically and socially, how marriage can be a metaphor for imbalanced power distribution, and the possibility of engaging in a heteroerotic relationship without experiencing disempowerment as a woman will be explored thoroughly.

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. Main Body
a. The role of gender within the concept of sexual agency
i. Hunter and Prey: The danger of a misogynistic society structure through role reversal: Hermia and Lysander (Act 2, Scene 2)
ii. Rulership: Male dominance in leader positions through the relationship of Hippolyta and Theseus
iii. Challenging of Subordination Feminism and traditional gender roles: Helen´s pursuit of Demetrius (Act 2, Scene 1)

3. Conclusion

“Is intercourse […] a basis or a key to women´s continuing social and sexual inequality?” (Dworkin: 143) - Examination of female disempowerment through sexual interaction within A Midsummer Night´s Dream

The gendering of most sections of daily life is omnipresent for most from childhood onwards. A study conducted by Chick, Heilman-Houser, and Hunter (2002) within the field of gender role development through the observation of child care discovered that even at the early age of 1 to 5 years differentiating between the genders happens. In the study, it was discovered that most of the attention was given to a minority of male children and that in the girls stereotypically female and subordinating roles were encouraged.¹ This manner of educational engineering continues into adolescence. Not only does this way of conceptualizing gender roles shape the perception of social relationships, but it also shapes the perception of sexual relationships specifically in regards to the classical male-female connections. Society has developed majorly over the last 500 years in regards to changing the traditional gender roles, however, this survey suggests that sexual relationships between men and women are still biased by them. There is still a tendency towards promoting male dominance and female subordination. Starting at sex education in school the main focus is put on male desire and teaches girls how to prevent unwanted pregnancy by taking different sorts of hormonal pills potentially harmful for the hormonal system. The question to be asked here is, therefore: what rank does sexual intercourse have in continuing this tradition of female subordination in society? This essay will argue that while it can and does play a major role, in particular in regards to sexual violence against women, it is not the key problem. To support this statement the essay will have a look at three scenes of William Shakespeare´s play A Midsummer Night´s Dream within which sexual intercourse is implied. In them the threat of male dominance to females within sexual relationships both physically and socially, how marriage can be a metaphor for imbalanced power distribution, and the possibility of engaging in a heteroerotic relationship without experiencing disempowerment as a woman will be explored thoroughly. All scenes feature a relation to the role of gender intersection, specifically the reversal of gender-specific roles to show why sexual intercourse is more threatening to the female gender in contrast to the male.

Hermia and Lysander are by definition the “star-crossed lovers” within A Midsummer Night´s Dream. They flee the city of Athens to be able to stay true to their shared love forbidden by their family. It is necessary for them to cross a forest in their escape in which they get lost and have to spend the night. Here it comes to a sexual advance of Lysander onto Hermia. He tells her, as they lay down for the night, “One turf shall serve as pillow for us both, one heart, one bed, two bosoms, and one troth.” to which she replies “Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear, lie further off yet, do not lie so near.”² The first encounter with his specific scene for myself was through the film “Wild Chicks in Love”, a German young adult film, which shows a staging of the play, in particular the discussed scene. In the film, the actress playing Hermia “accidentally” hits the actor of Lysander in the face while gesturing for him to lie further away from her.³ Contrasting to this comical staging is the re-enactment of the scene done by Robert I. Lublin in his 1997/1998 Shakespeare class at the Brown University of Rhode Island. With his students, he staged several versions of Act 2, Scene 2, one of them reversing the roles of Hermia and Lysander. Instead of Lysander being the sexual aggressor it is Hermia who is trying to engage him in sexual intimacy.⁴ As Lublin notes in his essay, the effect of this role reversal was quite comical. “When the scene was reversed and Lysander used the same words to avoid the sexual advances of Hermia, there was no valid motivation to support his delivery of the lines. Sex (in Shakespeare's time and in our own) offered little threat to his physical or social well-being since he would neither have to birth the child nor necessarily deal with it afterwards, and he certainly did not have to fear being overpowered and raped by the much smaller woman.”⁵ The point to be made here is, that it shows precisely the threats imposed upon women, engaging in sexual interactions, by a male-dominated world. In Shakespeare´s times, Hermia would have had to fear social exclusion and shame not only for a possible pregnancy but also for having sexual intercourse out of marriage. Pregnancy out of marriage is no longer seen as much of a scandal in modern society as it was back then however, the blaming of unwanted sexual intercourse on the female part of the relationship is no novelty in modern days. The term “victim-blaming” makes the assaulted responsible for the incident through their own behaviour and interaction. As described in the article by Emily Setty “Processes of communicating and interpreting consent are […] gendered.”⁶ The opinion of society is that it is through the failure of the female part in not articulating their refusal clearly enough that sexual violence happens as the article furthermore states.⁷

The danger for female disempowerment rests not only within sexual intercourse out of marriage but as well within the institution of marriage. Indeed, marriage can be seen as a representation of the imbalanced distribution of power within male-female relationships. The bond between Theseus, ruler of Athens, and his bride-to-be Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, illustrates this well. Theseus is looking forward to his upcoming wedding and wedding night with Hippolyta after having “woo’d [her] with [his] sword, and won [her] love doing [her] injuries;” (ll.19-20). As the quote suggests the marriage is not a willing one and Hippolyta does hence not seem as eager to marry Theseus. Looking at the background of the characters based on Greek myths makes her resistance very reasonable as in it he abducted her from her home in order to marry her. As Queen of the Amazons, she was a fierce warrior and was able to make her decisions herself without having to ask for permission. Consequently, she also chose her sexual partners herself. A marriage to Theseus robs her of these abilities as marriage during Shakespeare´s time meant the submission of the woman under the control of man. We can see that in the discussion surrounding Hermia´s refusal to wed Demetrius whom she does not love. Theseus tells Hermia while the by standing Hippolyta is listening “To you, your father should be as a god; […] To whom you are but as a form in wax, by him imprinted and within his power, to leave the figure or disfigure it.”⁸ It represents Theseus´s attitude concerning the female station within the social structures of society. Ergo Hippolyta´s description of her feelings regarding their wedding as “solemnities” are doubtlessly rational. As a married woman, it will be expected of her to provide Theseus with children and raise them as well, putting her back in her “naturally intended field of action”. She will have to bury her past in order to fit into her new position, she will have to fundamentally change her character from ruler to mother. Modern society is no exception in the creation of these imbalanced power relationships. Many fields of work are in important posts still majorly controlled by the male gender. Within the work environment, women are also excluded from achieving higher positions due to the assumption of an eventual pregnancy which goes hand in hand with maternity leave. In modern society, women continue to be the main caretakers consequently robbing them of potentially successful careers.

It is reasonable, therefore, that heteroeroticism, meaning sexual intercourse involving men, is seen as disempowering for the female sex by subordination and cultural feminism as it is inseparably connected to the social concept of male power and is thus rejected.⁹ The question remaining then is: can heteroeroticism under the patriarchy truly be a choice? For this, it is worthwhile looking at Act 2, Scene 1 of the play featuring a dialogue between Helen and Demetrius in the woods to which Demetrius has gone to find the escaped Hermia, and Helen has followed him to pursue her love for him further. Through her consistent pursuit, Helen takes a role traditionally prescribed to men: She chases after her desire and takes the sexual initiative. Demetrius cannot persuade her by his fervent rejection of her advances to stop her hunt for his love. He tells her “Do I entice you? Do I speak fair? Or rather do I not in plainest truth tell you, I do not, nor I cannot love you?”¹⁰ Interesting is that these words could have been and are also more likely to be spoken by a woman since as we have discovered earlier in the essay, the refusal is usually supposed to originate from the female part of conversation. Going back to the connection supposed to develop between Hermia and Demetrius, this scene could be staged as a conversation between Hermia and Demetrius, the difference being that Hermia´s opinion in the matter is not considered to be of relevance whereas Helen is counted on to follow the wishes of Demetrius as he presumably is the dominating part. This contrasting element once more brings the stereotypical roles of the genders to the front and explains the rejection of heteroeroticism. In the advancing of the scene an attempt to take back the power over the situation from Helen is made by Demetrius telling her “You do impeach your modesty too much, to […] commit yourself into the hands of one that loves you not; to trust the opportunity of night and […] a desert place with […] your virginity.”¹¹ For a second time, the threat of rape is brought up but whilst we can hardly overlook the victim-role inherited by Hermia in Scene 2, Helen will not let herself be pressed into it. Rather than letting Demetrius pick up the traditional gender roles, she advances further into the as male perceived domain by promising him that his “virtue is [her] privilege […].”¹² His reaction is to run from her, another reaction usually prescribed to female characters as a man doubtlessly should stay to fight his battle. This is impossible for Demetrius as Helen has taken over that part. He is also bound by the convention that is ungentlemanly to pick a physical fight with a woman seeing that she is physically weaker. To underline Helen´s up-taking of the male part of the conversation, she brings up the myth of Apollo and Daphne within which the god Apollo makes unwanted sexual advances towards the nymph Daphne who lets herself be turned into a tree by the river god Peneus in order to escape these. In A Midsummer Night´s Dream, this myth gets turned around by Helen as a symbol for the role change. She shouts after Demetrius “Run when you will, the story shall be changed: Apollo flies and Daphne holds the chase.”¹³ (ll.) Several animal metaphors are similarly turned on their heads. “The dove pursues the griffin; the mild hind makes speed to catch the tiger […]”¹⁴ both suggest the domination of the soft female over the stronger male. Helen´s approach to her situation might be considered to be an unsuitable one in Shakespearian society but connects to the changes of modern society regarding the gender roles in heteroerotic relationships. It has become more common for women to pay attention to their own desires and wishes within their sexual encounters. The role of the passive participant is in the process of being turned around.

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¹ Kay A. Chick, Rose Ann Heilman-Houser, and Maxwell W. Hunter ´The Impact of Child Care on Gender Role Development and Gender Stereotypes´ . Early Childhood Education Journal, 29 (3) (2002), 149–154 (149-152). https://link-springer-com.ezproxye.bham.ac.uk/content/pdf/10.1023/A:1014528424032.pdf

² William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream [E-book] (Minneapolis: Van Haren Publishing, 2014), p.28

³ Richard I. Lublin. ´Feminist History, Theory, and Practice in the Shakespeare Classroom. ´ Theatre Topics, 14 (2) (2004), 397–410 (405). https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.2004.0021

⁴ Richard I. Lublin. ´Feminist History, Theory, and Practice in the Shakespeare Classroom. ´ Theatre Topics, 14 (2) (2004), 397–410 (405). https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.2004.0021

⁵ Richard I. Lublin. ´Feminist History, Theory, and Practice in the Shakespeare Classroom. ´ Theatre Topics, 14 (2) (2004), 397–410 (405). https://doi.org/10.1353/tt.2004.0021

⁶ Emily Setty. ´Sex and consent in contemporary youth sexual culture: the ‘ideals’ and the ‘realities’. ´ Sex Education, 21 (3) (2020), 331–346 (332). https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2020.1802242

⁷ Emily Setty. ´Sex and consent in contemporary youth sexual culture: the ‘ideals’ and the ‘realities’. ´ Sex Education, 21 (3) (2020), 331–346 (332). https://doi.org/10.1080/14681811.2020.1802242

⁸ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream [E-book] (Minneapolis: Van Haren Publishing, 2014), p.2

⁹ Andrea Dworkin, Intercourse (20th Anniversary ed.) [E-book]. (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p.143

¹⁰ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream [E-book] (Minneapolis: Van Haren Publishing, 2014), p.23

¹¹ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream [E-book] (Minneapolis: Van Haren Publishing, 2014), p.24

¹² William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream [E-book] (Minneapolis: Van Haren Publishing, 2014), p.24

¹³ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream [E-book] (Minneapolis: Van Haren Publishing, 2014), p.24

¹⁴ William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream [E-book] (Minneapolis: Van Haren Publishing, 2014), p.24

• College: University of Birmingham
• Course: Plays and Performances
• Grade: 2,0
• Author: Sophia Schwarzmann (Author)
• Publication Year: 2021
• Pages: 8
• Catalog Number: V1236986
• ISBN (PDF): 9783346656278
• Language: English
• Tags: feminism, feminismus, beziehung, A Midsummernightsdream, frauen, women, hermia, helena, hippolyta, sex, reationship, partriarchy, contemporary