Hamlet was written and first performed in a deeply patriarchal society, and this social context is well-represented in the play itself. Through Gertrude and Ophelia, the only two women in the play, modern audiences can come to understand how the limited and challenging gender roles of this period left little hope for a woman’s personal happiness or fulfillment.

Hamlet idealizes his mother and father’s relationship and harshly judges Gertrude for remarrying so soon after his father’s death. It is quite possible, however, that Gertrude's marriage to Claudius was an act of survival rather than of love; Gertrude may have seen an alliance with Claudius as a way to escape her precarious social position as the widowed former queen. Instead of considering the complexity of Gertrude’s situation, Hamlet judges his mother's grief as false, noting the "unrighteous tears" in her "galled eyes." He accuses his mother of weakness, a complaint he then extends to all women: "Frailty, thy name is woman!" In act 3, Hamlet directly confronts his mother, using harsh and, at times, graphically sexual language to accuse her of immodesty and hypocrisy. Confused, Gertrude tells her son that his words are like "daggers" entering her ears and that he has "cleft [her] heart in twain." It is never revealed to what extent Gertrude is aware, if at all, of Claudius’s crimes, but her genuine shock in this scene suggests that she is likely ignorant of his treachery. In the final scene of the play, Gertrude eventually falls victim to Claudius's scheming herself.

Ophelia, a young and innocent beauty who was once the object of Hamlet's affection, finds herself powerless and trapped by the contradictory expectations of the men around her. To her family, Ophelia must embody purity and chastity, whereas Hamlet sees her as an object of desire and romance. The contradictions inherent in Ophelia’s position are highlighted in the conflicting instructions of her family, who initially urge her to reject Hamlet’s romantic advances but then later demand that she exploit Hamlet’s love to further their plans. Once Hamlet realizes that she has been drawn into the schemes of the king, he, too, uses Ophelia as a pawn, toying with her emotions and insisting that his earlier professions of love were lies. He belittles her and dismisses her misery, insisting that women are deceptive by nature. After Hamlet kills her father, Ophelia is driven to madness and dies, presumably by suicide. In her madness, Ophelia’s disjointed stories and songs often touch on themes of sex, betrayal, and innocence, implicating the dueling manipulations of Polonius, Laertes, and Hamlet in her mental breakdown. Ophelia’s apparent suicide, though condemned as a sin, is perhaps the only point in the play where she takes control of her own life's trajectory—though her deteriorated mental state leaves the true extent of her agency unclear.