Well, it’s the end of Week 2 of our latest Humanities unit, Shrew You, and it’s time for my second weekly review blog post!
A real shrew!
We learned a lot this past week, but one thing I learned that stood out to me was the term ‘shrew.’ I’ve heard that used to describe a woman before, but I didn’t know what it meant, beyond it being vaguely misogynistic. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a shrew is an ‘ill-tempered, scolding woman.’ It has a long history of being used against women, especially women who refused to submit to men. It was commonly used in Shakespeare’s time, but after doing some research, I learned that some people still use it today. This was shocking to me, as it seems so blatantly misogynistic to tell women to be quiet, be calm, and submit to men. We did a quiz in class from a religious blog run by Mary Kassian called ‘Are You a Shrew?’ While I was reading the quiz, I expected it to be satirical, and related to the play, but it wasn’t. It was a serious article for women to take a look at whether they bother their husbands too much, and that was really disappointing.
While learning about this, I was reminded of what we did last week. The word ‘shrew’ is similar to the word ‘slut’, which we discussed the usage of last week, in that they both shame women for doing things that men are not shamed for; the word shrew shames women for being angry and bossy, which is something that men are never called out for. The word slut shames women for their sexual history, but it’s not used against men and there’s no male equivalent.
Next week, I want to learn more about how women are viewed in the Taming of the Shrew, and if we should interpret the play as holding those same beliefs against women.
Thanks for reading my blog post!