Shakspeare shows the exaggeration of the protesting temper in woman by means of the little spat between Queen Eleanor and Constance, in ii. 7.
A woman's language becomes exacerbated because she is so inadequate to protest by actions. The weakness rolls itself into a bristling defence of words. Men do not drip so profusely into words because they are reservoirs of force and competency. They know that by fair means or foul they can effect purposes from which women are debarred by seclusion, strangeness of habit, and innate reserve. Among women there is a certain resentment at this civic and social disability which does not stint expression.
When, however, a noble woman with a level countenance repudiates an unjust charge, she transfers herself from the bar to the bench, and unseats her summoners. Their purpose quails before this innocence that is so weak, yet grows so overpowering, as in the beauty of Madame Roland and the prison-blanched majesty of Marie Antoinette. The rebuke pulls down the accuser's eyes from their threat, and they seem to go wandering into corners furtively for refuge. Joan of Arc burns in court before the deluded men who claim her as an imp of witchcraft have time to pile their fagots: the passionless chastity gives out blinding sparks when thus enforced; the cheeks of bystanders are reached by them and set aglow. No man who has been unjustly dealt with, and selected for foul practice, can reach such palsying dignity of behavior that turns the axe's edge or holds the arm suspended in mid-resolve. There is a high manly scorn which is beyond refuting: it can kindle admiration in unwilling minds, and compel baseness to pause and to confer. But woman's beauty, planted in the breastplate of an untainted heart, becomes a petrifying image; and whoso meets the ruthless look will remember it even in the moment of a consummated revenge. Nothing helps bad men at such a sight but the poor subterfuge of flying into a rage, as if to muster in that way momentum enough to huddle her off, to get her where the condemning head shall fall before its eyes or lips can utter another protest. They shear it at the neck, never reflecting that they thus untether it to range in other skies, to unkennel heaven sleuth-hounds at last and drag them down.