Lady Macbeth Is a Feminist Icon

By Trinity Barnette

Rewriting the narrative of Shakespeare’s most misunderstood woman

History remembers Lady Macbeth as a villain—a manipulative wife who goaded her husband into murder and then cracked under the weight of her own ambition. She’s been reduced to whispers in literature classes and villainess archetypes in pop culture: the ultimate femme fatale, the embodiment of guilt and greed.

But that version of Lady Macbeth is only half the story.

When you strip away centuries of patriarchal framing, what’s left is not a monster—but a woman who dared to want more in a world where women were taught to want less. A woman who wasn’t evil, but strategic. Not power-hungry, but power-starved. Not emotionally unstable, but emotionally overburdened.

Lady Macbeth isn’t a cautionary tale. She’s a feminist icon.

The Myth of the Manipulative Woman

Let’s get one thing straight: ambition has always looked different on women.

When men pursue greatness, they’re celebrated. When women do the same, they’re dangerous. Lady Macbeth exists in the heart of that contradiction. As soon as she hears that her husband might be king, she doesn’t hesitate—she starts planning. She doesn’t sit around praying for fate to unfold. She moves.

“Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be

What thou art promised.” (Act 1, Scene 5)

Translation? You’ve got the titles, babe—now take the crown.

What gets her labeled “manipulative” is actually just strategic foresight. She knows Macbeth. She knows he’s hesitant, easily swayed, and filled with doubt. So she pushes him. She shames him. She dares him to take what he wants because she knows that the world will never simply hand it to them.

She isn’t power-hungry—she’s tired of being powerless.

“Unsex Me Here”: Rejecting the Cage of Femininity

One of the most iconic and misunderstood lines in Shakespeare comes from Lady Macbeth:

“Come, you spirits

That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty.” (Act 1, Scene 5)

This isn’t a woman rejecting womanhood—this is a woman rejecting what society told her womanhood must be. To be soft. To be obedient. To be quiet, even when the hunger inside you burns.

When she says “unsex me,” she’s saying:

“Take away the roles, the rules, the expectations. Let me be ruthless like a man is allowed to be. Let me want power without apology.”

If that’s not feminist rage, what is?

The Weight She Carries

The irony of Lady Macbeth’s story is that she breaks, but not because she’s evil. She breaks because she absorbs the consequences of power without ever being allowed to hold it.

She plans the murder. She covers for Macbeth. She holds him up while he falls apart. But once the chaos begins, she becomes a ghost in her own story. Macbeth continues down a blood-soaked path of violence, but Lady Macbeth becomes an afterthought, swallowed by the guilt and isolation of her own silence.

“Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” (Act 5, Scene 1)

Her famous sleepwalking scene—where she tries to scrub invisible blood from her hands—isn’t just a symbol of guilt. It’s a woman trying to cleanse herself of the shame she was never meant to carry alone. Society doesn’t just punish women for being ambitious—it punishes them for surviving ambition at all.

Tragedy Isn’t the Same as Villainy

Lady Macbeth is not the villain of Macbeth. If anything, she’s a mirror of how ambition eats women alive when they’re not allowed to hold it safely.

What makes her tragic isn’t her hunger—it’s how she was forced to channel it through manipulation and secrecy, because the world had no space for a woman like her to rule openly. She was a queen in spirit, but never in name.

In another timeline, she could have been a CEO, a revolutionary, a president. Instead, she dies offstage, alone, broken by the very dreams she once held so tightly.

And yet, through it all—she never once renounces her ambition.

She never apologizes for dreaming of more.

Lady Macbeth Today: The Modern Echo

Lady Macbeth’s story didn’t end with Shakespeare. Her archetype lives on in the women we both admire and judge today:

• Claire Underwood (House of Cards): The woman behind the power, always two steps ahead.

• Elizabeth Holmes (The Dropout): A real-life story of ambition, deception, and the public obsession with punishing “too much” female ambition.

• Shiv Roy (Succession): The corporate daughter clawing for power in a male-dominated world, torn between loyalty and liberation.

What do they all have in common?

They live in the shadow of Lady Macbeth.

Let Her Be Great

Lady Macbeth’s story isn’t one of evil. It’s one of erasure. She’s a woman punished for wanting what men are applauded for: control, legacy, power, respect.

She deserved better.

And maybe that’s why we still talk about her. Maybe that’s why her story still cuts deep. Because for every Lady Macbeth, there’s a woman today navigating the same impossible standards—expected to be supportive, silent, soft, while the world calls her “too much” for daring to want more.

So no, Lady Macbeth is not just Shakespeare’s villainess. She’s a feminist icon who walked so every power-hungry, guilt-ridden, emotionally complex woman could run.

Let’s stop calling her mad. Let’s start calling her misunderstood—and let’s give her crown back while we’re at it.