Why were women not allowed to perform in Shakespeare's plays?

Answer 1

Women were never allowed to perform in Shakespeare's plays because at that time, women were underestimated. People always thought that men should do things because women were made to carry babies and be the house wife, this changed, however, over time.

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Another PerspectiveWomen were respected and acting was considered to be a vulgar activity. Rather than being "underestimated", women were held in such high regard that acting would have been considered to be truly unbecoming of a woman.

Only the low classes ever considered any of the theatrical arts, and acting was beneath most of polite society.

Answer 2

Shakespeare wrote during the Jacobean and the Elizabethan era. During these times, it was considered improper or indecent for a women to perform on a stage and so all female parts were played by young boys who's voices had not yet broken.

Women did attend plays though, but usually ones of lower class. It was considered uncouth for a higher class lady to attend plays, although many still did in disguise or with masks on. Acting was considered a very low job in society and they weren't respected. Also, women weren't allowed to act in public. For this reason, young boys were used instead of women to act in plays. Their voices had not yet changed and they possessed the closest thing to women's voices.

Answer 3

The theate was a new thing in Shakespeare's time (the first full-time commercial theatre started when Shakespeare was about eight years old). Actors were regarded as a disreputable lot, because they hadn't been to college, and didn't have a professional qualification.

When some actors, and some playwrights, started making shedloads of money (William Shakespeare himself became seriously rich in later life) things got worse.

Elizabethan actors and playwrights were the rockstars of their day - people with regular jobs and regular educations felt threatened by them.

The Elizabethans were not comfortable with women having their own money. They weren't as repressive as the earlier Tudors had been, but the general feeling was that a woman should have children and keep house.

The idea that a woman could be financially independent - even wealthy - would have horrified most Elizabethan men.

How times have changed!

Answer 4

Not because they were thought of not worthy to be on stage and they were told to stay at home and do the cooking and cleaning all day and not go out and have fun. That is a totally fictitious image of the attitude toward women in the Elizabethan age. It was perfectly acceptable for women to go out and have fun, which they did. They also sometimes had jobs because how else were you supposed to live if you were a widow? Those who did stay and keep a house had a major job on their hands. Up until about a hundred years ago, cooking and cleaning was a difficult full-time job which required a lot of skill and expertise to do. For a house of any size, it was a job beyond the capacity of one person, which meant hiring and organizing help.

The reason women weren't allowed on stage was that it was not thought to be decent. It is difficult to explain that in terms comprehensible to North Americans and Europeans. If you are female, how would you feel about going around town doing your daily routine bare chested? How would people feel about a woman who did? Wouldn't she risk being arrested for indecent exposure?

This is how Elizabethans in England felt about women getting up on stage and performing. They were shocked and outraged, not because they felt the women should be in the kitchen, but because no decent woman would display herself like that to any man who wanted to stare at her. Using the vernacular of nowadays, they would think it was "gross" or "creepy".

In France, where they were actually much more controlling of the lives of their women (travellers from the continent to England were astonished at how freely women went about their business there), actresses were perfectly normal and acceptable. A French acting troupe toured England but were booed because one of them was female.

For one reason or other, this attitude changed within a hundred years of Shakespeare's birth. After the Restoration, English audiences were prepared to accept actresses (but for hundreds of years would be convinced that any woman who would appear on stage must be of lax morality).

Answer 5

Acting was a part of the work force; during that time period, women were shunned if they did not stay as homemakers.

Answer 6

Acting was considered an intellectual facet of daily life. Women weren't permitted to be intellectual. Only the socially elite were taught to read and write.

Answer 7

because its a figure of disrespect when a mans wife is kissing another man

Answer 8

because sexism was standed then