Women in Theater and How Their Roles Have Developed Over the Years

• by

  Ronald Chen
• Feb, 27 2017 at 5:47 pm

The Western tradition of theater has its origins all the way back in ancient Greece and Rome. The Greeks started their theater practice with tragic plays, which started around 532 BC. The problem was that Greek culture put women in a position of being inferior to men, so womens' role in society was very restricted in many ways.

Women were not allowed to be on the stage because it was considered "dangerous." Men played male characters as well as female characters! The Greeks believed that allowing women to perform publicly would be too dangerous and that having men portray them neutralized the danger. So what about the Romans? Well, the Romans had a similar view of women but over time, Roman plays did start to have a few female actors.

Theater was an important tradition in Medieval times too. Medieval theater was certainly an exciting thing, but how much were women involved? The answer... not a whole lot, but sometimes. There was still a perception in society that theater was something that was better suited for men and not women. One interesting exception was the German writer Hrothsvitha, whose plays tended to present women as people with strong, noble personalities. This contradicted the view of women that most people in her society had.

More and more types of theater emerged as time went on. And as theater expanded in a variety of different directions, women's importance in the theater was also expanded. There's no question that women are a major part of theater today, participating in all kinds of ways. But there was not an easy path that led to this point. It's unfortunate that theater has historically been unfair to women. Still, there were a lot of women who loved theater so much that they felt the need to defy cultural expectations and join in anyway.