No Subject

[Unregistered]

Please learn to spell.

[Pro-Shrew]

Good try but seeing the play as not about sexism is the same as assuming that starving and threatening a woman isn't about abuse. Katherina might have been a "shrew" in protest of the powerlessness of women--she was too bright and spirited to be quiet because it's expected. But brutality can silence any of us, including Katherina. Perhaps Shakespeare wasn't sexist, but he held a mirror up to the sexism of the day.

[Unregistered]

The Taming of the Shrew is not a sexist play at all! In fact Shakespeare was sticking up for the women of his time by giving them the gratest complement possible then and now, the fact that women are as clever or cleverer than men.<br>Look at the play like this: Petruchio did not tame Katherina! Instead, Katherina realised what Petruchio was trying to get her to do by starving and depriving her of sleep etc and decided that she would play along so that she could live in harmony with her husband and gain further respect from her peers. <br>If you have read the induction, you may have seen the similarity between Sly's predicament and Katherina's. If you are analysing the induction you may understand that Sly is not tamed either, but merely is taking advantage of the "sweet savours and soft things" that the Lord has given him! The whole point of the induction is so that the audience can project Sly's "apparent" change onto Katherina's situation. <br>So the play is not only clever, but it is complementry to women and anti sexist in all aspects if you can only understand the way Shakespeare used the induction to shape the way that the reader understands Katherina's "change"<br>Bryony, English student

[Night Haunter]

The Taming of the Shrew is not a sexist play at all! In fact Shakespeare was sticking up for the women of his time by giving them the gratest complement possible then and now, the fact that women are as clever or cleverer than men.<br>Look at the play like this: Petruchio did not tame Katherina! Instead, Katherina realised what Petruchio was trying to get her to do by starving and depriving her of sleep etc and decided that she would play along so that she could live in harmony with her husband and gain further respect from her peers.

I agree, its not sexist, she decided to keep her self respect.

[Pwincess-Hannah]

its not a sexist play but she didnt keep her self respect if she gave into him!

[Redzeppelin]

Kate didn't "give" anything away accept her choice to be a willful, rebellious and hostile person. Kate was not fighting for some higher purpose - she was simply angry at the world and was venting that anger upon any and all who came near her. What she "gave up" was a self-destructive attitude that would have left her lonely and unloved for the rest of her life. The play appears "sexist" because of the hyper-political-correctness of our society that bristles at any depiction of a man having some authority and control and the woman with no self-control. Petruchio does not "control" Kate - she could continue to choose to be contrary for the rest of her days if she really wanted to. She was not "conquered" by Petruchio - she was liberated by him.