Q. Consider “Shakespeare’s Sister” as a feminist essay?

Answer:
In the essay “Shakespeare’s Sister,” Virginia Woolf creates the fictional character of
Shakespeare’s sister, Judith, to symbolize oppression and proto-feminist in the early
17th century. Woolf’s “Shakespeare’s Sister” essay depicts a life before feminism,
where a woman in the Elizabethan era would never be able to write, perform or even
strive due to the inevitable gender bias. How she demonstrates sexism through use of
a fictional character is an effective way to show that feminism was unknown before
the late 18th century because she can show the difference between a male’s role and a
female’s role in society in comparison to today.

Comparing Shakespeare’s role in society as a male during the Elizabethan era to

his fictional sister Judith’s life shows that men were able to make their own decisions
while women were only capable of being mothers and housewives. Woolf suggests
that women’s lives had to follow a standard and “they were married whether they
liked it or not at fifteen or sixteen very likely”. Women were betrothed to any man
their father thought was appropriate, the bride herself had no choice in the matter.
From a young age women had to be obedient to their father and then to their
husband. Women were
viewed as inferior to the males in society, they had to follow orders without voicing
opinion or concern. Men, on the other hand, were able to marry any woman they
please and have children. They were able to go to school and to work while women
were not allowed to pick up a book or learn how to write. Though William
Shakespeare and his hypothetical sister Judith grew up in the same family,
“Shakespeare himself went, very probably to the grammar school” while Judith “had
no chance of learning grammar or logic”.

Female writers in the 17th century were scarce, not due to women having no
knowledge, but because of the lack of opportunity given to women. They were unable
to learn how to read or write, making it nearly impossible to write a play similar to
Shakespeare. Judith Shakespeare is very similar to William, Woolf imagines her to be
“as adventurous, as imaginative, as agog to see the world as he was”. If Judith was a
real human in the 21st century, she would have the opportunity to go to school and
would be encouraged to write plays and poetry without having to “hide them or set
fire to them”.

Though the 21st century is not perfect, the feminist movement allows for
women to embrace who they are and be who they want. This society is working
towards leaving gender roles in the past so women would never have to go through
the lifestyle Woolf created Judith Shakespeare to have. It’s not those women were not
capable of writing the plays of Shakespeare, it’s that they were never given the chance
to. When Judith tried to act in theatre, she was turned away before she could prove
herself. “No woman, he said, could possibly be an actress”, it was believed that
women could not do something, rather than allowing her to prove herself. Judith is a
symbol of oppression in this essay because it empowers women in the 21st century to
be the voice that women in the 17th century was never allowed to have. They were
suppressed from following dreams, and in Judith’s case she wanted to follow in her
brother’s footsteps because she was so similar to him. The only thing holding Judith
back from being successful was her gender. It was not shyness that would have held a
woman back in the 17th century, it was the consequences that came with
disobedience.

Woolf writes for it needs little skill in psychology to be sure that a highly gifted
girl who had tried to use her gift for poetry would have been so thwarted and
hindered by other people, so tortured and pulled asunder by her own contrary
instincts, that she must have lost her health and sanity to a certainty. If Judith, or any
woman in the 17th century was disobey the laws of society and go against the social
norm, they would risk being punished. With this in mind, women’s oppression was
prominent in that era and it was easier for women to play their role in society than to
risk physical and emotional abuse from male superiors. Though Judith initially hid her
gift from the world, she would soon find out the true “conditions of life for a woman”,
when trying to put herself out in the world. Women were supposed to play a specific
role and there was no way of getting out of it. Regardless if they hide their true gift or
they try to embrace it, they would end up being punished or going mad. In Judith’s
case, she went mad before she could ever live to be like her brother.

Judith’s fictitious life showed that female oppression started at a very young
age in the 17th century, women’s lives were chosen for them and they had to follow
the orders created by superior men. With the lack of knowledge and opportunity,
women never had the chance to become playwrights, poets, or anything besides a
housewife. In an era where feminism was absent, Woolf assumes the gender bias
would have drove any woman to suicide just because they could not voice their
creativity or step away from the rules and boundaries set by dominant males. Judith
Shakespeare’s character was an effective way for Woolf to develop her proto-feminist
argument that sexism prevented women from creatively expressing themselves
through means of literature.