Shakespeare's Sister

  I firmly believe that there were women during Shakespeare's time with the same genius as Shakespeare, but due to the societal limitations for women, there would be no way for these women to pursue that knowledge and passion. Like Virginia Woolf's A Room of One’s Own, Woolf states that if Shakespeare had a hypothetical sister that she may have come to develop the same interests as Shakespeare did. For example, a love for theatre may have developed, but during those times women were not actresses so there would have been no way for her to pursue that passion, thus no way to reach the fame and recognition that Shakespeare's works have reached. I believe that this relates to that fact that women are expected to stick to different roles. In early times, women were supposed to take care of the domestic tasks, while men were off in school becoming educated men. As time passes, women start to migrate toward the roles of men, but still have to remain inferior to them. This carries over to modern times as well. Men get defensive and feel as though women are not able to competently complete a task, but this is just to this predisposition idea that women equal to men. This all correlates to the main starting point which Woolf made that women were not given the same opportunities as men from a young age to pursue their passion. Because of this, the women during Shakespeare's time were not able to make themselves known, thus allowing them to be forgotten as well as all the other female geniuses of the past.