bring forth their "masters." While not directly stated, one could justify the apparitions as being male based upon the prophecies and warnings they provide. As every warning and prophecy is given, Macbeth fails to interpret them correctly. In the end, he is not satisfied with the witches' masters and curses them, "let this pernicious hour stand aye accursed in the calendar."

Second, Macbeth has begun to take on the true role of the male. No longer needing to be led by his wife, Macbeth plots to murder Banquo based upon the prophecy. Macbeth has finally become the man Lady Macbeth wanted him to be. No longer the weak one who "is too full o'the milk of human kindness," Macbeth is the ambitious and ruthless man she has always desired.

The women in Macbeth have substantial power over the main character.  The three witches and the head of the witches Hecate give Macbeth just enough information so that his natural instincts toward ambition and greed are stirred up.  He literally destroys himself with the help of the witches.

Lady Macbeth is a strong influence over her husband.  She convinces him to go through with killing King Duncan.  Macbeth had a crisis of conscience before he told his wife he had decided to forget about killing the king.  She succeeds in begging, pleading and insulting her husband into accepting the fact that he must kill the king.

Women are portrayed in "Macbeth" in two primary ways. First, they are portrayed as being highly influential, but not as being the primary actors. The play is called "Macbeth," after all, not "Lady Macbeth." In this it reflects the time.

A more complex way women are portrayed is as distinct from the ways of men, and in untrustworthy, even "weird" ways. "Weird" is used here specifically: women are involved with fates, magic, and strangeness. They have powers that are not natural and that reach across time and space. This can be seen in the witches, but also in Lady Macbeth's planning her husband's future.

Lady Macduff is represented as being entirely housebound and dependent upon her husband. She is like a prisoner in her castle and confined to spending most of her time with children. She is weak and fearful. Her own little boy puts up a stronger defense against the murderer than his mother, suggesting that even an immature male is stronger than a female.

The Gentlewoman who is in attendance on Lady Macbeth has no power. She is completely subordinate to the Doctor, who treats her like an inferior. The Gentlewoman is depicted as simple-minded and fearful, nothing more than a personal maid. She exists as a character mainly for the Doctor to have someone to dialogue with and to provide him with information.

Lady Macbeth is intensely ambitious, but she is completely dependent upon her husband to fulfill her ambitions. She cannot become queen unless he becomes king. Furthermore, she is characterized as simple-minded when it comes the matter of assassinating King Duncan. Her husband knows that it is a tremendously complicated and dangerous matter which will not be "done when it is done." In his soliloquy in Act 1, Scene 7 he says:

But in these cases
We still have judgment here, that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague th' inventor. This even-handed justice
Commends the ingredience of our poisoned chalice
To our own lips.

He can imagine all sorts of possibilities. If he can become king by killing Duncan, others will get the idea of killing him. People are bound to suspect him of the assassination, and they will be hard to govern because they will hate him and pity their dead king. His wife can only see the problems involved in disposing of Duncan and cannot see all the complications that can--and will--result from that atrocity.

There is only one strong woman's part in Macbeth. Shakespeare may have written in the parts for Lady Macduff and the Gentlewoman because he felt the cast needed a little better "orchestration." Lady Macbeth is a memorable character, but she is blinded by her ambition and the direct cause of her husband's downfall. In the end she has fallen completely to pieces, while her husband remains resolute and courageous in the face of the invading army.

I would say that Shakespeare portrays the women through the witches in a very negative manner. The witches know what is going to happen and they set Macbeth on the course of self-destruction through reaching his desire for wealth and fame as the king. They also do this to his wife, who is almost more effected by the premonitions that the witches offer than Macbeth himself. Further, at that time, the use of witches could be very scary for the audience, because witches were heathens and heretics. Shakespeare's use of them, especially with the negative connotations and the active attempts to destroy a person's life should be seen as very negative and destructive.

I would suggest that Shakespeare does not so much use androgyny as, rather, allude to male and female traits—in the way they are conventionally understood—as a means of explaining or clarifying the motives and actions of his characters.

Lady Macbeth's famous wish to be "unsexed" indicates that she herself believes that, as a woman, she doesn't have the qualities required to plot or carry out a murder. Other things about her behavior suggests a stereotyped femininity. She urges Macbeth to commit the murder of Duncan rather than doing it herself. This is a case of her using her "feminine wiles." But one could interpret the wish to see her man become successful as a positive trait (though in this case severely misguided!) motivating her rather than pure selfishness.

However, in more than one scene, she tries to humiliate Macbeth by questioning his strength and his masculinity. When the ghost of Banquo appears and Macbeth becomes hysterical, she pointedly asks him, "Are you a man?" and then:

Oh, these flaws and starts,
Imposters to true fear, would well become
A woman's story at a winter's fire,
Authorized by her grandam.

And:

What, quite unmanned in folly?

Yet these insults don't put a stop to Macbeth's panic. In the end, it's Lady Macbeth who becomes psychotic, and when she's gone, Macbeth can finally be said to show genuine courage of a sort—or at least a defiance of his fate—by facing Macduff instead of committing suicide as she has evidently done.

The figures genuinely implying androgyny would be the witches, but although Banquo, when he and Macbeth encounter them, thinks they "look not like th' inhabitants o' th' earth" he evidently realizes immediately that they are female when he says:

By each at once her choppy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips.

There does not seem to be any doubt that the witches are women, in spite of their beards. Arguably the beards are not so much indicative of androgyny as they are an element of pure strangeness and horror. In their sinister plotting and nursery-rhyme manner of speech the witches conform, like Lady Macbeth, to a series of rather demeaning female stereotypes.

Interestingly, in Akira Kurosawa's samurai version of Macbeth,Throne of Blood, the solitary figure that utters the prophecies does appear to be androgynous. Kurosawa transposes not only the setting of the story but converts it to a primarily visual experience, distinct in its effect from the emphasis on the power of words in the original. In the film, the fact of not being able to tell if the figure is a man or a woman increases the visual horror of the scene.

By contrast, through wording alone Shakespeare clearly describes them as women—albeit frightening and unearthly ones.

As in a number of his plays, Shakespeare likes to flip certain gender conventions in Macbeth. In this play, Lady Macbeth wears the proverbial pants. She admits that she is taking on the masculine role when she decides to exhort her husband to murder King Duncan.

Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood.
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it!
(act 1, scene 5, lines 30–37)

Essentially, Lady Macbeth is saying she needs to be cruel in order to carry out this murderous plan. This means acting more like a man than like a woman. She believes that cruelty, cunningness, and ambition are masculine traits.

Furthermore, Lady Macbeth believes that Macbeth acts more like a woman than like a man, believing him to be too kind and unsure of himself. She tells him,

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promised. Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' th' milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.
(act 1, scene 5, lines 15–18)

Lady Macbeth goes on to say that it is up to her to berate her husband into taking the action that will give him the crown. We can see here that it is the wife who rules the husband, something that subverts traditional gender roles of the time.

The fluctuating relationship of gender roles with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is one that corresponds to the balance of conscience and guilt within them. 

Preparation

Before beginning to write, the student may wish to examine the marital relationship of the Macbeths in the beginning as a traditional relationship that becomes reversed in Act I, Scenes 5 and 6; later, it changes back in Act IV as Macbeth becomes brutal and, certainly, in Act V as Lady Macbeth weakens and hallucinates in her guilt. Planning out the points at which role changes occur in the play before writing will be helpful to the organization of the essay. Whenever a point is made, supporting that statement with passages from the play will fulfill the assignment to "make detailed reference to language forms, features, and structures."  (Of course, making a rough outline of sorts prior to writing is very helpful to organizing the essay)

Ideas/Specifics that can be used (The student will need to organize ideas arrange them according to his/her essay plan directed by the thesis that is written.)

--The first sentence at the beginning of this response can work as a thesis for this essay, For, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth hold the dominant role in their marital relationship according to who is undisturbed by conscience. In Act I, Scene 5, the initial role reversal of genders occurs after Lady Macbeth reads her husband's letter that informs her of his appointment as Thane of Cawdor and the witches' prediction that he will become king, she wants him to hurry home so that she can persuade him to immediately go after the crown:

He thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear....
To have thee crowned withal. (1.5)

So that she will remain firm in her purpose, Lady Macbeth asks the spirits to unsex her in Act I, Scene 6. After this she dominates Macbeth whose conscience bothers him about killing King Duncan, a kinsman who has always been a virtuous king [see M.'s soliloquy of 1.7] Further, when Macbeth does kill Duncan, his conscience bothers him more as he speaks of the blood upon him. Lady Macbeth derides him for his lack of manhood:

My hands are of your color, but I shame 
To wear a heart so white....(2.2)

(Yet, there has been some fluctuation in her bravado earlier in the scene when she reflects that if Duncan had not looked so much like her father, she could have murdered him herself. This twinge of conscience foreshadows her reversal later on. Also, her telling Macbeth to wash his hands and everything will be fine foreshadows her obsession of not being able to wash the blood off the steps)

Commenting of the first part of the play, critic Roland Frye observes of the Macbeth's relationship that Lady Macbeth "usurped conjugal authority" from Macbeth and “[While] Lady Macbeth ‘unsexed’ herself, Macbeth profaned his sex by submission to her”

Source:
Frye, Roland Muschat. “Macbeth’s Usurping Wife.” Renaissance News 8 (1995): 102-105.

--By Act III roles start to reverse themselves again: Lady Macbeth begins to soften and Macbeth becomes more brutal as he loses any conscience about his acts as his arms sink in blood. He urges Lady Macbeth now, instructing her to make her face a "vizard" and tells her that Banquo and Fleance must be killed (3.2).  Yet, he still has twinges of conscience as he imagines the ghost of Banquo sitting in his chair at the banquet. However, while Lady Macbeth begins to become more womanly--“You must leave this” (3.2. 40)--at the end of Scene 3, Macbeth resolves that he must continue his brutal path because he is so steeped in blood now. Experience will harden him, he tells his wife, "Is the initiate fear that wants hard use."(3.3)

--With Macbeth's growing lack of guilt, he reasserts his male gender role. He plans murders with no twinge of conscience:

The castle of Macduff I will surprise, 
Seize upon Fife, give to th’ sword 
His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls 
That trace him in his line. No boasting like a fool; 
This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool. (4.1. 171-175) 

On the other hand, Lady Macbeth, becomes feminine again as she assumes guilt. In Act V she is stripped of her bravado and cruelty. She hallucinates, repeatedly washing her hands in an effort to remove Duncan's blood. Yet, she sees spots of it constantly: 

Out, damned spot!...Why then, ‘tis time to do’t. Hell is murky. Fie, my Lord, fie, a solder and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him? (5.1. 37-42) 

Also, she is delusional and speaks to Macbeth of Banquo's murder: "What's done cannot be undone." Clearly, Lady Macbeth is no longer able to restrain her conscience which causes her return to womanhood while Macbeth continues upon his ambitious and murderous path.

You might also want to consider the roles of the witches in relation to gender and power.  They are often referred to as "the weird sisters," but are just as often (when the play is staged) considered gender-neutral as participants in the play, since their "male" or "female"-ness isn't the point of their existence in this story, but rather it is their supernatural/evil participation in the plot.

Consider how the play might be different if you have a cast of men playing the witches.  Would their actions seem more threatening, more powerfully persuasive to Macbeth?  Or, if the cast is all women, is there more power to be utilized in their female gender?  Do they, for example, woo Macbeth with their sexual wiles?

By the way, the idea of power simply being an overt, warlike, masculine expression of dominance is certainly not the only type of power to consider.  Consider the amount of power that Lady Macbeth holds over Macbeth and whether she might be using her relationship with him as his wife, her sexual wiles, to influence him.

Power in drama is often found in the conflict between individual characters in the play.  So, you should read the play carefully to note where gender seems to influence the way in which a character gains or loses power in a scene.  For example, what role does gender play in Act IV, scene ii, the murder of Lady Macduff?

I suggest, if your essay is to be only 150 words, that you track one character (or group of charcters if you choose the witches) through the play and note how gender affects their interactions with others in moments of gaining or losing power.  Good luck!

Let's look at the issue of Shakespeare's subverting of gender and power roles from the perspective that when Shakespeare wrote Macbeth, around the time that James I assumed the throne of England in 1603 after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, female characters were played by men and boys.

This practice began in Ancient Greece during the time of Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides, and continued well past the Elizabethan period until 1660, when King Charles II, who was exiled in France after the execution of his father, Charles I, was restored to the English throne after the death of Oliver Cromwell and the disastrous Protectorate of Cromwell's son, Richard, also known as "Tumbledown Dick." After promising to rule in cooperation with Parliament—something that Charles I got beheaded for refusing to do, thank you very much—Charles II was welcomed back to England.

On July 9, 1660, King Charles II issued a "patent" (license to perform) to two London theatre companies:

Forasmuch as many plays formerly acted do contain several profane, obscene and scurrilous passages, and the women’s parts therein have been acted by men in the habit of women, at which some have taken offense . . . we do likewise permit and give leave that all the women’s parts to be acted in either of the said two companies may be performed by women.

Margaret Hughes is credited with being the first woman to perform on an English stage when she played the role of Desdemona in Shakespeare's Othello on December 8, 1660. Way to go, Maggie!

Back to Macbeth . . .

The Three Witches and Hecate (another witch who was probably added to the play at a later time by Thomas Middleton) were played by older men. Lady Macbeth was played by a young man. So, too, was Lady Macduff. The Gentlewoman who attended Lady Macbeth might have been played by an older or younger man, depending on who was available.

Keep in mind that there were only about 16 actors in Shakespeare's acting company at any given time, and since many of Shakespeare's plays had twice as many characters (sometimes more) than the number of actors in the acting company, the actors who didn't have leading roles had to play more than one character (called "doubling").

And one man in his time plays many parts . . . [Jaques, in As You Like It, 2.7.149]

Again, back to Macbeth . . .

Shakespeare's manipulation of gender roles begins in the very first scene of the play with the Three Witches. They're planning something for Macbeth, which we find out two scenes later is going to change his life and the lives of the people around him forever—and not necessarily for the better.

In the third scene, the Witches meet again, as previously arranged, and here come Macbeth and Banquo, right on cue, all sweaty and dirty and bloody and manly, taking a break from a battle in which Macbeth cut a guy in half longways without even saying "hello."

The Witches put their plan into action by telling Macbeth that he's going to be King and telling Banquo that even though he's not going be a king himself, he's going to be the ancestor of kings. James I of England, who believed himself to be descended from Banquo, attended the first performance of Macbeth at his palace in London.

Shakespeare probably put that part about Banquo in the play just for James. James also wrote a book on witchcraft, which is probably why there are so many witches in the play.

Remember that the Witches are played by men, and that the Witches are usurping the male role by ordering events and determining the consequences of courses of action for the alpha male character in the play, and, by extension, everybody else.

Lady Macbeth, too, does her best to push around the alpha male, her husband, by making rude remarks about his manhood and manliness to shame him into killing Duncan so Macbeth can be King, and, more importantly, so she can be Queen.

Macbeth gives in. He says he'll kill Duncan. Then he says he won't. He sees a computer-generated image of a dagger in the air. He talks to himself. "Should I kill Duncan or not? What will people think? What should I wear? Should I have my hair done?"

As far as Lady Macbeth's line about "unsex me here" is concerned [at 1.5.42], she isn't asking to be made into a man. She's asking to be made into an unfeeling killing machine.

Lady Macbeth clearly takes on the male role by convincing Macbeth to kill Duncan, and then by finishing the job that Macbeth was supposed to do. Macbeth was too scared to go back in the room with the dead and bloody Duncan, but Lady Macbeth wasn't, and without hesitation, she went back in the room and left the daggers by the guards so it looked like they killed Duncan.

Soon she's back with Macbeth, telling him to get his act together, clean himself up, and get prepared for what's going to happen when people find out that Duncan has been murdered in their house.

By now, Lady Macbeth has completely reversed the gender roles. She holds the power in her relationship with Macbeth, and in the country, and she remains in power and in charge until the enormity of what she's done catches up with her and she starts walking around the castle in her nightgown and slippers mumbling to herself about "damned spots."

Again, remember, in Shakespeare's time, Lady Macbeth was played by a man who was acting like a woman who was taking over the man's role and the power that went with it.

That must have been really something for James I to see.

When using the key words "gender," "power," and "subvert" in terms of Shakespeare's Macbeth, there is only one character to which all three are applicable--Lady Macbeth, of course.  You have some excellent analysis already, and I would only add one more idea.  Lady Macbeth is--in all ways but one--the consummate hostess.  There was an implied power to that position, which she clearly subverts when she undertakes the murder of a guest in her own home.

I'm not quite sure I understand your question.  The "perception" of power that you speak of would be something that the audience holds, since the characters are inside the story, not perceiving and analyzing it.  Certainly, especially in Shakespeare's plays, characters comment on the action, but since Shakespeare is the creator of his own characters, he cannot subvert their perception of anything.  They simply exist as he has created them.

On the other hand, the audience is on the outside of the story, and Shakespeare, if he is aware of perceptions and preconceptions they might have regarding a subject such as gender roles, might definitely create a character with the intention of surprising or subverting the audience's expectations.

The best example of this sort of reversal of expectation would be the character of Lady Macbeth.  Her role, as wife to a high-ranking Thane, would have been, first to produce an heir, and also to assist her husband in maintaining his rank and position and serving as hostess to their guests.  However, in the very first scene in which she is introduced in the play, she is demanding to be "un-sexed" and proceeds to manhandle Macbeth into following through on what appears to be a stronger lust for power and position than that of her husband.

And, subverting his audience's expectation yet again, he has this same  super-strong Lady Macbeth, by Act V, wilt and break as the frailest of female flowers under the weight of her guilt.  She turns into a mad and fragile female, unable to withstand the consequences of her mighty and masculine choices earlier in the play.

Clearly, the characters that most influence Macbeth in the play are female. Their roles remain the subject of debate among scholars, however, with some claiming that Lady Macbeth and the witches are more responsible for the events of the play, and others laying the blame at Macbeth's feet. The witches (and Hecate) exert a malevolent influence, largely by piquing his ambition with prophetic visions of his future. By telling him that he is to be king, the witches seem to realize that he will be tempted to murder his way to throne. By telling him, as the visions sent by Hecate do, that he can only be killed by someone not of woman born, and then only when Birnam Wood marches to Dunsinane, they give him a lethal overconfidence, as Hecate says:

He shall spurn fate, scorn death, and bear/His hopes ’bove wisdom, grace, and fear. And you all know security/Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.

If the witches nudge Macbeth along the path to self-destruction, his wife is the person who plots out the details of Duncan's murder, then steels her husband to commit the deed when he undergoes a brief moment of hesitation due to conscience. She challenges his manhood and his integrity, and ultimately prods him into the murder. This leaves open the question of whether Macbeth would have committed the murders at all without his wife's encouragement. An interesting aspect to the role of women in the play is that Shakespeare refers to them in androgynous terms that would have made them seem unnatural to his audiences. The witches, for instance, have beards, and Lady Macbeth asks for the "spirits that attend mortal thoughts" to "unsex" her, giving her the ruthlessness she needs to push her husband toward murder.

The Weird Sisters certainly have a pivotal role in the play.  They ignite Macbeth's ambition by telling him that he will become king, and they plant the seeds of jealousy in him when they tell Banquo that he will father kings.  It seems unlikely, based on Macbeth's initial response to the Sisters' predictions, that he would ever have dreamed of becoming king.  He begins the play as an incredibly loyal subject to his kinsman and friend, the current king, Duncan.  However, once the Weird Sisters' first statement, that he will become the Thane of Cawdor, comes true, Macbeth begins his passage down a dark path of betrayal and corruption and tyranny.  Without the Weird Sisters' involvement, it seems probable that Macbeth would have remained loyal to Duncan.

Macbeth's wife, likewise, has a pivotal role.  He tells her, "We will proceed no further in this business" but she urges Macbeth on, persuading him to kill the king, even after he's decided against it.  Without Lady Macbeth's involvement, it seems likely that Macbeth would not have gone through with regicide.

The only male/female relationship that is explored in any detail in the play is that of Macbeth and his wife. At the beginning of the play, theirs is clearly a caring relationship, with Macbeth referring to his wife as his "dearest partner in greatness," and Lady Macbeth is determined to do what must be done to gain him the throne. What it unique about this relationship is that Lady Macbeth assumes a role that would have been viewed as masculine in Shakespeare's day, even asking that the "spirits that attend mortal thoughts" would "unsex" her, ridding her temporarily of her conscience. She proceeds to take the lead in planning and covering up Duncan's murder. Over time, though, she is marginalized as Macbeth's ambition consumes him. She ends up being the one stricken by conscience. Their relationship is unique for the passive role in which it casts Macbeth, which is also interesting in light of the witches, who are also "unsexed" in a sense, having beards. 

This is a subjective question that asks an audience member to decide for himself or herself. Part of the difficulty in answering this question is that Macbeth doesn't give readers a large sample pool to pull data from. There are so few female characters in the play that it is almost guilty of the "Smurfette Principle," in which only a single female exists in the entire cast. The witches and Lady Macduff prevent the trope from being fully employed; however, adding the witches doesn't help remove the "female power problem" that the question asks about.

If a reader looks at Lady Macbeth and the witches, that reader is likely to assume that women are not portrayed positively in this play. Those women hold a great deal of power over men, and they exert the most power over Macbeth. Unfortunately, the power and control that they exert is not a positive influence on Macbeth. This problematizes female power. The witches first put the notion in Macbeth's mind that he could be the future king. He knows it is a long shot, but he is also smart enough to figure out how to make it happen if he so desires.

Lady Macbeth is also smart enough to figure it out. She is a cold enough person to conjure a plan to make it happen and totally commit to the plan. When Macbeth decides that he isn't going to go through with the murder, Lady Macbeth reasserts her power over her husband and pressures him into killing a good man and loved king. Perhaps she is a femme fatale trope or the neck that turns the head of the household. It doesn't really matter, because it is clear that the woman has the power, and her power is directed at doing evil.

In act 1, scene 7, Macbeth tells his wife that he is no longer willing to murder King Duncan. Lady Macbeth, determined to become Queen, sets about changing her husband's mind by belittling his masculinity. She mockingly asks her husband if he is "afeard" and if he is prepared to "live a coward in [his] own esteem." Macbeth, initially, is resolute, and insists that he "dare[s] do all that may become a man," and that "who dares do more is none." For Macbeth, masculinity is characterized not just by action, but also by morality and self-discipline.

Lady Macbeth, however, sensing a vulnerability, keeps on attacking her husband's masculinity. She tells Macbeth that when he was prepared to kill King Duncan, then he "were a man," the implication being that he is no longer a man now that he has changed his mind. Lady Macbeth also tells her husband that if he were to become king he would be "so much more the man," implying that he can not be fully a man until he has fulfilled the prophecy told to him by the three witches and become king.

After this continued barrage from his wife, Macbeth's resolution weakens. He says that he will murder the king after all, and that he is "settled" upon this course of action. The implication one might draw from this exchange between Lady Macbeth and her husband is that the latter's insecurities about his own gender, specifically his masculinity, are so profound as to lead him along a path that leads ultimately to regicide.