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Showing posts from June, 2011

William Shakespeare, Rock Star Feminist

I know what you're thinking: The Twitter withdrawals have her mind all wonky. How is Shakespeare a feminist? Well, he's not exactly. But then again, have you read Much Ado About Nothing? If you haven't, allow me to introduce you to one of my favorite figments of The Bard's imagination: Beatrice. Beatrice is a bit past her prime as far as marriageable women go. So given the time, she was probably around 18. Spinsterhood by all accounts. She wasn't ugly. She just had opinions, they differed from those of the men around her, and yet she expressed them anyway. Her uncle Leonato tried to encourage her to see reason and someday get married. Her response: “Not til God make men of some other metal than Earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be over-mastered with a piece of valiant dust! To make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?” What she's saying is that she's not willing to settle for a man who is beneath her intellect and emotional matu