Caitlin Daly Shakespeares women and the Role of Gender Stereotypes in Othello Desdemona-the main woman character in Shakespeares

Othello, before marrying Othello shows feminist actions. She is able to use the gender roles in Venice at the time period to manipulate her father into allowing her to marry Othello. She shows this in this line: My noble father, I am hitherto your daughter/But heres by husband/And so much duty as my mother showed/To you preferring you before her father/ So much I challenge that I may profess/Due to the Moor my lord Here she shows an abiloity to go against traditional womens roles, by using them to manipulate her father. Traditional womens roles at the time in Venice were first obedience and loyalty to ones father then duty to ones husband. She manipulates these two obedience by saying that instead of duty to her father, she now has to be loyal to her husband, effectively being disobedient and using socially correct methods to get what she wants. However, once married to Othello she slips into the more submissive housewife role. Desdemona represents the ideal of that time, passivity and obedience and cannot compare to Othellos military like domineering qualities. She fully shows the stereotype of obedience to a perfect example here when talking to her maid. Othello says to her Go you to be thinstant and showing her passivity, she says to her maid We must not now disappoint As Othellos jealousy and suspicion grows through Iagos manipulation the reader can see the typical treatment of women completely working against Desdemona. Othello cannot listen to his own wifes innocence because of the typical stereotypes of women as adulterers liars and untrustworthy. Once a man plants this in his ear, it becomes real to him and he cannot listen to a woman dispute it. Also as his jealousy grows, Desdomona becomes more unable to deal with his harshness. After Othello is harsh and strikes her, she says I am a child to chiding. This means that because of her inferiority, her only available reaction is like that of a child. Until the end of the play, Desdemona shows complete loyalty to her lord, but also shows her knowledge that this new jealous Othello is different than the man she loves. This is show when she says My lord is not my lord. This shows that her obedience is not actually towards the domineering Othello, but to the old lord that she had loved. Also when she says his unkindness may defeat my life/But never taint my love. At the end of the play all of these instances show that, despite the appearance that she is being subdued in the role of victim and typical wife, she is actually showing her own will. She is not being obedient to the harsh cruel Othello, but to her own love and the man that she loved. At the end, she proves that she in fact goes against modern stereotypes and shows her own will. Lastly, typical female stereotypes allow Othello to justify his horrible actions to himself. Because she is a woman, it is her fault. He shows his thoughts here Yes

she must die, else shell betray more men. This quote shows Othellos ability to use the fact that shes a woman and the conventional stereotypes and gender roles of the day to justify the murder of an innocent woman, just because she is a woman and they are untrustworthy.