Moving Past ‘Fierce’

In Act 1 of Taming of the Shrew, Katherine makes a remark to her father: ” I pray you sir, is it your will to make a stale of me amongst these mates?” In this statement Katherine is responding to her father, Baptista, for telling Lucentio, Tranio, Gremio and Hortensio that she must first be wed before any man is to marry his youngest daughter, Bianca.

In “Moving Past ‘Fierce'” on page E1 of the New York Times, fairly new designer Christian Siriano describes his struggles with being underestimated and looked down upon by his peers in the fashion industry due to his success from a reality TV show. While Siriano is not a female as Katherine, there are immense and apparent similarities in how they are perceived by those around them; just not good enough or rather misunderstood. Much like Katherine, Siriano states he is just fine with how he is perceived.

Another similar quality in these two individuals is the fact that the society in which they live is not perceptive to changes in social hierarchy. For Katherine, women were clearly not perceived as well respected individuals in the time period in which she lived. Today, reality TV stars are not highly respected (or at all) by industry peers. Their struggles are very similar.

While there are some fundamental differences between Katherine and Siriano, they both struggle in a society where they are considered inferior. Katherine is an intelligent, quick witted woman in a society where women are not highly respected-especially for speaking their mind. Instead, men such as Lucentio vie for the attention of a girl with an almost non-existent personality-Bianca. Whereas Siriano struggles to gain the respect of his peers for lack of “hard work” or having to “work his way up” like many other successful designers.