The Humanhood of Emotions Robert Kimbrough’s “Macbeth: The Prisoner of Gender” tells of the struggle of humanity to fall back into a state of being androgynous, and how this affects Macbeth and Lady Macbeth from Macbeth. According to Kimbrough, the ideas of masculinity and femininity were created by humans, with small differences fueling larger stereotypes of the two genders. Yet, from these stereotypes, came a “hierarchical: masculine first, feminine second” (175) relationship, where men being seen as strong were thought to be better than women. Shakespeare’s work, including Macbeth, attempts to break such stereotypes and changing the focus to humanhood. “Humanhood embraces manhood and womanhood” (175) and allows people to show more emotion,
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While we seem to be more aware of it in today’s society, we still do fall subject to traits related to strength and wisdom being thought of as more masculine, while traits related to emotions are thought of as more feminine and this can be seen through the rhetoric used in situations concerning emotion. Where as moen are thought to always be more emotional then men, men that show emotions are told to ‘man up’, which further illustrates the idea that showing emotions is not seen as a manly trait. Instead, resolute toughness and a lack of emotion is more manly. On the other hand, when a women takes charge or speaks out promoting her beliefs, she is thought to be more manly, as politics both in the United States and worldwide have shown over the past few months. For example, when the Nigerian president’s wife spoke out against her husband and how she would not be voting for his re-election, his first reaction was to force feminine stereotypes upon her to counteract her bold and resolute statements about him. Yet in both of these scenarios, showing emotion and speaking one’s thoughts, are both human reactions to situations. Instead, our “inclusive and exclusive gender labeling” (175), as Kimbrough puts it, causes us to categorize each reaction as not fitting in with the perceived notion of the gender. Rather, one should approach such situations with humanhood in mind, understanding that it is not wrong for men to take on feminine traits or vice versa, simply because our idea of gender norms is merely a social construct and instead our humanhood is what defines
While we seem to be more aware of it in today’s society, we still do fall subject to traits related to strength and wisdom being thought of as more masculine, while traits related to emotions are thought of as more feminine and this can be seen through the rhetoric used in situations concerning emotion. Where as moen are thought to always be more emotional then men, men that show emotions are told to ‘man up’, which further illustrates the idea that showing emotions is not seen as a manly trait. Instead, resolute toughness and a lack of emotion is more manly. On the other hand, when a women takes charge or speaks out promoting her beliefs, she is thought to be more manly, as politics both in the United States and worldwide have shown over the past few months. For example, when the Nigerian president’s wife spoke out against her husband and how she would not be voting for his re-election, his first reaction was to force feminine stereotypes upon her to counteract her bold and resolute statements about him. Yet in both of these scenarios, showing emotion and speaking one’s thoughts, are both human reactions to situations. Instead, our “inclusive and exclusive gender labeling” (175), as Kimbrough puts it, causes us to categorize each reaction as not fitting in with the perceived notion of the gender. Rather, one should approach such situations with humanhood in mind, understanding that it is not wrong for men to take on feminine traits or vice versa, simply because our idea of gender norms is merely a social construct and instead our humanhood is what defines