Gender Essentialism Katherine s Transformation

Gender Essentialism: Katherine s Transformation in William Shakespeare s Taming Of The Shrew Feminist and cultural historians have convincingly demonstrated that rebellious women were a concern for englishmen during the late sixteenth centuries (Detmer 273). The idea of â€Å"taming† a women is one that men can find useful, though women can also benefit from. Katherine cynically conforms to expectation, and in doing so displays how The Taming of the Shrew is a critique on gender essentialism. The Oxford English Dictionary states, essentialism is a belief that things have a set of characteristics which make them what they are. This theory in regards to gender refers to the fact that men and women have been born into particular roles which they must abide by. The men in this play measure their own fulfilment of gender roles through their relationships with women. Petruchio believes that if a man is unable to tame his woman, he himself is no better then a shrew. In this essay I will argue that Katherine s transformation from miserable â€Å"shrew† to obedient wif e signifies the necessity of assuming proper gender roles to survive in the patriarchal world of William Shakespeare s The Taming of the Shrew. This is depicted through Katherine s journey during the whole of the play, her actions, how she acts around others and how others act around her all come back to Katherine learning to play her part as the ideal 16th century woman. It is immediately apparent in The Taming of