How is Lady Macbeth a stereotypical woman in Macbeth?

A "stereotypical" woman meddles in affairs she knows little or nothing about in an attempt to achieve social standing through manipulating her husband. Lady Macbeth does this.
In Act 1, she takes charge of planning the "business" of murdering King Duncan after worrying that her husband is too kind to do so. This demonstrates a naive blindness to Macbeth's true nature. In Act 1 scene 2, we find out that he hacked a man in two in battle. She doesn't know what he is capable of until it is too late.
Second, when Macbeth expresses doubts about the plan to murder Duncan, Lady Macbeth attacks his masculinity and tells him that she measures his love by his willingness to execute her plan.


That is an interesting question, because Lady Macbeth would not usually be described as a "stereotypical woman" in any way. Her ambition, her savagery (including her willingness to sacrifice a baby, if she had one, to that ambition), and her complicity in a brutal murder all make her atypical.
But we can examine the way in which she ultimately reacts to the acts she has committed and influenced Macbeth to commit. Ultimately, Lady Macbeth is not as ruthless as she sees herself to be. The classic "sleepwalking scene" reveals that she does have a conscience and that it is tormenting her in her sleep and dreams. Although Shakespeare is not explicit on this point, we believe she eventually commits suicide.
If one takes the position (which is seriously problematic and with which I vehemently disagree) that women are the "weaker sex," and that, unlike Macbeth, she succumbs to her weakness, that would be one argument. But beware of that assumption. Macbeth has also "murdered sleep," becomes even more of a monster, and does not survive based on his male "strength."

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