Gender Roles Reinforced: Rosalind and Celia

While reading, As You Like It, a particular passage stood out in 3.2. Celia is discussing the poems that have been left in the forest and an anxious Rosalind is begging to know who wrote them.  In this scene, each of the women seem to touch on a particular stereotype applied to their gender, and agree with it in a sort of playful tone.  For example, Rosalind says, "Good my complexion, dost thou think though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition?" (III.ii.177-178), which essentially is a comment on how Rosalind's patience is still as little as that of a woman's, despite her men's clothing.  She later says, "Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak" (III.ii. 226-227).  This is yet another stereotype that women speak their mind freely and, often, unabashedly.  Later in the scene, Rosalind discusses how woman are, "touched with so many giddy offenses" (III.ii.313-314).  This scene playfully touches on the stereotypes of women by women characters who seem to reinforce them.  It is interesting that Rosalind and Celia seem aware of these stereotypes and still seem to uphold them, despite the fact that some of the characteristics are not so desirable.  This scene seems to set the tone for the entire play's view on gender roles and the ability to reinforce them, while still "making fun" of them.