What is Shakespeare *saying* about the issue of "women" in Shakespeare's play, Hamlet?

In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hamlet
speaks the line that summarizes his view of the women in his play. In Act One, scene
two, Hamlet is disgusted with his mother. Gertrude and Old Hamlet had seemed extremely
devoted to each other for many years. Yet after his death, she remarries quickly—and not
just with anyone, but with her dead husband's brother, who also becomes King of
Denmark.

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Hamlet:

Heaven
and earth,

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on
him

As if increase of appetite had
grown

By what it fed on, and yet, within a
month—

Let me not think
on't—

Frailty, thy name is
woman!—

"Frailty,
thy name is woman" sums up Hamlet's attitude with the two women in this play.
It is not because he hates women that he makes this statement about women in
general.

What does the quote mean? It translates to
"Weakness, your name is woman," or that "woman" is synonymous with "weakness." Hamlet
believes that Gertrude turned to Claudius because she was weak. He is very critical of
her actions. Towards the end of the play, when Hamlet finally confronts his mother, he
is extremely harsh in sharing how he feels about her "incestuous" behavior with
Claudius. Hamlet says to Gertrude to sit still and listen as he tells her the harsh
truth about her actions—if she is still has any common sense. Hamlet
says:

Peace!
sit you down,

And let me wring your heart; for so I
shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff;
(40)

If damned custom have not braz'd it
so

That it be proof and bulwark against
sense.

When Gertrude asks
what she has done to make him so mad, he shows her a picture of Old Hamlet—a "product of
the gods." Then he describes Claudius, saying he is like a "mildewed ear of corn."
Hamlet says:

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Look here upon this picture, and on
this,

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.
(60)

See what a grace was seated on this
brow…

A combination and a form
indeed

Where every god did seem to set his
seal

To give the world assurance of a
man.

This was your husband. Look you now what
follows.

Here is your husband, like a mildew'd ear
(70)

Blasting his wholesome
brother.

He asks her if she
has eyes. How could she love someone "like a mountain" but then marry a man more like a
"swamp?" Next, he informs her that Claudius killed Old Hamlet. She is devastated; Hamlet
might have said more, but Old Hamlet's ghost appears and tells him to leave her judgment
to heaven. She has seen herself in a new light, and promises to support
Hamlet.

Hamlet is also disappointed in Ophelia, who he
believes has turned her back on him to spy for Claudius and Polonius. So he tells her
that she should not marry, but go to a nunnery—that she should not have children because
people—like himself—are wicked. And when he asks where her father is, she lies—and he
knows it.

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HAMLET:

Get
thee to a nunnery! Why wouldst thou be a (130)

breeder of
sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that
it were better my mother had not borne me. I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious; with
more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them
shape, (135)

or time to act them in. What should such
fellows as I do, crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all; believe
none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your
father?

Sadly, Hamlet
believes that Ophelia is also weak, which is unfair since she cannot stand up to her
King or father, but he rejects her, implying that she is weak and
dishonest.