Crazy ladies

I would like to talk further about the subject of portrayal of women as unstable in opera. I would suppose that if you took a survey of the number of operas which portray women as “loosing it,” or possibly “have already lost it,” and compare it to the number of operas where men “loose it,” (there are a few, Rigoletto comes to mind) there is an overwhelming majority on the side of women “loosing it.” Of course there are reasons for this; mainly the overwhelming continuation of the Aristotelian perpetuation, which makes me wonder did we ever even have a chance to prove ourselves? But I believe there is still redeeming value to these operas which show ladies “flying off the handle.” There is a reason they do. They continue to live and work in environments that are hostile to them, that make them do things that they would rather not do, and deal with people that are unreasonably difficult. It's everybody else's fault. If men were not so difficult and were not so incapable of understanding others (as women are portrayed to be able to do). In the case of A View from the Bridge it's the men who don't do wise things, are unable to take time out to understand. Beatrice has been living in an extraordinary situation. It's understandable that she would have a negative reaction. I think perhaps it would be unrealistic and boring if she didn't. I think we saw examples of her throughout the opera where she tried to make a stand, but this was made impossible but the over-imposing men of the story. We are sympathetic with her and if anything, we come to view men in a more negative light. I am curious to see an opera with a strong women character to see how it would be received. Perhaps this is another example of not being able to see the oppression until it is rejected.