A feminist appraoch to the text may criticize the text’s readiness for the punishment, embarassment, subjugation, and diminishment of its women in order to uphold the supremacy and comfort of men, and in the name of comedy. According to scholar Shirley Nelson Garner, “The movement of the play toward ordering the fairy, human, and natural worlds is also a movement toward satisfying men’s psychological needs, as Shakespeare perceived them, but its cost is the disruption of women’s bonds with each other.”

Regarding the conflict between Titania and Oberon over the custody of the changeling boy, Garner asserts that Oberon’s primary motivation in his desire for custody of the changeling boy is domination over Titania. The changeling boy represents the lasting connection between Titania and her friend. The price of amity between Oberon and Titania subsequently involves the humiliation and torment of Titania, who is made ridiculous in her love for Bottom; the language of her speech evolves from lyric poetry in describing the effect of their quarrel on the natural world, to adoration over the monstrous Bottom, “Thou art as wise as thou art beautiful” (3.1.150). In the end, Oberon wins the “exclusive love” over Titania and the changeling boy; meanwhile, Titania loses the changeling boy and her only lasting connection to her friend. 

Regarding the relationship between Hermia and Helena, Garner asserts that the play breaks the bonds between the two women, sees their humiliation and subjugation through repeated insults from their lovers, and sees them silenced following their marriage to their men and isolation. In Act I, Scene 1, Hermia’s dialogue establishes her having deep bonds with Helena and her breaking them or replacing them in running away with Lysander: 

And in the wood where often you and I

Upon faint primrose beds were wont to lie,

Emptying our bosoms of their counsel sweet,

There my Lysander and myself shall meet (1.1.219-222).

Helena subsequently chastises for breaking these bonds in Act III, Scene 2. (The monologue in full can be read at left.) While Lysander and Demtrius take their quarrel off stage for a duel, the fight between Hermia and Helena remains in front of the audience, and is taken to demeaning lengths with insults exchanged and the threat of physical violence. The two women experience insults at the hands of their lovers as well, Helena while pursuing Demetrius and Hermia after Lysander falls in love with Helena, and following the events of the woods, Helena and Hermia, per the word of the text, do not speak again and do not explicitly make up with one another; their bonds are left irrevocably broken, and their agency taken through marriage. According to Garner:

“The pattern of these comic endings suggests that heterosexual bonding is tenuous at best. In order to be secure, to enjoy, to love—to participate in the celebration that comedy invites—men need to maintain their ties with other men and to sever women’s bonds with each other. The implication is that men fear that if women join with each other, they will not need men, will possibly exclude them or prefer the friendship and love of women. This is precisely the threat of the beautiful scene that Titania describes between herself and her votaress. This fear may be based partially on reality, but it is also partially caused by projection: since men have traditionally had stronger bonds with other men than with women and have excluded women from participation in things about which they cared most, they may assume that women, granted the opportunity, will do the same. Given this possibility or likelihood, Shakespeare’s male characters act out of a fear of women’s bonding with each other and a feeling of sexual powerlessness. The male characters think they can keep their women only if they divide and conquer them. Only then will Jack have Jill; only then will their world flourish.”

Ultimately, in the play, the patriarchal authority of Egeus is questioned and overturned, when Theseus honours Demetrius’s will to marry Helena, not Hermia; however, Theseus’s patriarchal authority, in conquering Hippolyta, goes unquestioned. Shakespeare’s text implies that patriarchal authority must be combatted—however, importantly, to an extent. 

A feminist approach to the text may also highlight the text’s commitment to the desires of the women, of the four lovers. As with many Shakespearean comedies, the young men of the play remain fickle and ever-changing in comparison to the women whose desires are self-determined and obeyed by the plot. While Demetrius and Lysander’s desires do change in the course of the plot, the play honors the women’s love with constancy, granting them some sense of agency.