Final answer:
Women in Shakespeare's time faced limited opportunities, highlighted by Virginia Woolf's fictional account of Judith Shakespeare. Education and work in areas such as the theater were largely inaccessible to them. Judith Sargent Murray later emphasized the need for educational equality, reflecting long-standing gender constraints.
Step-by-step explanation:
Based on the excerpt from "Shakespeare's sister," one can infer that the opportunities open to women during Shakespeare's time were severely limited. The text implies that if Judith Shakespeare, an imaginary sister of William Shakespeare, had been afforded the same opportunities as her brother, she might have achieved similar greatness. However, women were distracted from society's expectations, which involved motherly and household duties. Women's access to education was heavily restricted, with no access to college until the 1700s, and even then, it was limited to the exceedingly wealthy. The theater, a central cultural aspect of London and a sphere where Shakespeare thrived, was a world beyond the reach for most women of the time.
Furthermore, the writings of Judith Sargent Murray in the 1780s advocating for women's economic independence and equal educational opportunities underline the constraints on women that had persisted for centuries. Looking at Shakespeare's work, like Hamlet, through a gender lens allows scholars to explore how gender roles and expectations impacted women's lives and how characters like Ophelia and Gertrude function within his plays. This context helps to infer the limited scope within which women operated and were expected to stay.