Feminism in Virginia Woolf’s Essay “Shakespeare’s Sister”

In the essay “Shakespeare’s Sister,” Virginia Woolf creates the fictional character of Shakespeare’s sister, Judith, to symbolize oppression and proto-feminism 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 that 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 were 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.