Feminism

The only thing that I can really get from my reading about feminism in Lear is in act II. The women Regan and Goneril are both being portrayed as stubborn and demanding. Women are typically stereotyped as needing too much from men, and being very set in their ways. This is something a feminist would have a problem with, stereotyping is the worst. Honestly though I don't think Shakespeare wrote it in a demeaning way for women. If you sit and study anything long enough you can twist and manipulate it to find whatever you are looking for in it.

Anyway you can see this in Act II when they are refusing to let him stay with them. They are asking him to get rid of all his servants or men or knights or whatever they are, and then they just throw him out in the cold. The whole scene just makes women look mean in general and does not show them in a kind understanding light. They also proceed to call him old and senile.

Also in the act before this one the third sister, Cordeilia, is the nice and sweet one and she is left with none of the power in the end, and she doesn't stand up for herlself she just backs down. Helen Cixous would say, "“Either the woman is passive; or she doesn’t exist." This is the only way that men want women to be, either do as they say or you are not even a person to them.