Gender Roles and Social Construction in Romeo and Juliet

Introduction: Gender as a Social Construct

Judith Lorber, author of "Night to his Day: The Social Construction of Gender," asserts that gender is not biologically determined but is a construct of society. This would indicate that the process of socialization is a prime determinant in the development of gender — in other words, how a child is raised will shape his or her gender-based behavior. With this theory in mind, it is interesting to examine traditional gender roles in literature and to consider how works of the past treated the roles of male and female. William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is one of the most famous works in Western literature. It was written around the end of the 1590s, at a time when actors were exclusively male, meaning that all women's roles would have been played by men. This fact alone would be enough to ground a discussion of traditional gender roles in society, but a more intensive reading of the play sheds even more light on the depiction of gender at that time.

The sociologist Judith Lorber claims that "gender cannot be equated with biological and physiological differences between human females and males. The building blocks of gender are socially constructed statuses" (Lorber 17). It is society that defines gender and the behavior associated with it, and in Western culture there are two genders: male and female. How individuals who are male and female behave is a learned process called socialization, which begins in childhood and develops fully as one reaches adulthood. Once gender has been ascribed, "the social order constructs and holds individuals to strongly gendered norms and expectations" (Lorber 25).

While Lorber demonstrated that gender is a social construct, she also showed that gender is not uniform across all cultures. Some cultures blur the distinction between male and female, but Western culture has maintained a tradition of only two genders, enforcing clear and well-defined separation between them. One productive way to investigate traditional gender roles in society is to study the literature of that society, and Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet provides a revealing example of those roles in Western literature — along with a few surprises.

Traditional Gender Roles in Renaissance Society

The traditional understanding of gender during the Renaissance era is best exemplified by a remark from Sampson, one of the Capulets' servants: "And therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust to the wall; therefore I will push Montague's men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall" (I.i.16–20). Men were expected to be strong and brave, while women were considered weak and valued primarily for male gratification. Shortly thereafter, Sampson again displays the traditional masculine gender role by challenging a Montague: "Draw, if you be men" (I.i.64). Men were traditionally expected to be strong, courageous, sexually assertive, and unwaveringly masculine. They were also expected to endure pain and hardship without complaint. After Mercutio is fatally wounded and lying dying, Romeo demonstrates this masculine ideal by telling his friend, "courage, man; the hurt cannot be much" (III.i.96).

Masculinity and Its Contradictions in Romeo

Romeo and Juliet is, however, a love story, and traditionally when a man fell in love — as Romeo does — he was considered by many to be unmanly and contrary to the definition of masculinity. Infatuation, or an immature attraction to another, was regarded as shallow and transitory, as illustrated by Friar Lawrence's scolding of Romeo for his obsession with Rosaline. Because Romeo was behaving in what the Friar considered an unmanly way, he chastised Romeo for his lack of strength: "women may fall when there's no strength in men" (II.iii.85). It appears that it was socially unacceptable for a man to be slavishly controlled by his feelings for a woman.

This tension reveals one of the play's central contradictions: the very emotions that make Romeo a passionate and sympathetic figure — his capacity for love and grief — are precisely the traits that Renaissance society coded as feminine weakness. Shakespeare uses this tension deliberately, constructing a male protagonist whose inner life consistently strains against the rigid masculine ideal his society demands.

Conclusion: Tragedy and the Failure of Gender Conformity

While Romeo attempts to conform to the gender role placed upon him by society, Juliet attempts to break free of those constraints. Romeo tries to be strong and masculine, but ultimately fails, taking his own life when he believes Juliet has died — an act the play's social logic frames as the ultimate collapse of masculine self-control, a surrender to grief over a woman. Juliet, who had successfully escaped her assigned gender role, then discovers that her escape has also failed: the man she loved has killed himself on her account.

Romeo tried to conform to his gender role while Juliet tried to break free of hers. In the end, neither was able to accomplish the goal, and this is a central reason why the play is considered a tragedy. Their story illustrates with painful clarity what Lorber's theory predicts: when the social construction of gender is rigid and unforgiving, the individuals caught within it — whether straining to conform or straining to resist — may find that neither path leads to survival.