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Sexism - an old story
From Arnold Drenth
What does Shakespeare have to teach us? What concerns us now concerned him then: (we call them) racism and sexism, united under an old yoke, the burden of revenge. Playing now, near you, from the divorce courts to the globalising world stage
I'm looking at Othello for an educational publisher, and Charles Nicholl's excellent book The Lodger leads me to this:
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Let husbands know
Their wives have sense like them; they see and smell,
And have their palates both for sweet and sour,
As husbands have. What is it that they do
When they change us for others? Is it sport?
I think it is; and doth affection breed it?
I think it doth; is't frailty that thus errs?
It is so too; and have not we affections,
Desires for sport, and frailty, as men have?
Then, let them use us well; else let them know,
The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.
(Othello IV 3)
The world has not changed so much since his day; what concerns us now concerned his audience then: in this instance, love, marriage, fidelity, sexual mores, the role of women, right behaviour. The fact that Emilia delivers this as Desdemona makes ready for bed adds dramatic urgency, and shows the hand of the master playwright. And the echo of that famous speech in the earlier Venetian play
The villany you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.
(Merchant of Venice III 1)
links what we now call racism and sexism under a very old yoke, the burden of revenge, the vendetta. Playing now in a divorce court, and on the multi-cultural world stage, near you.