Discuss Shakespeare's representation of gender in Macbeth?

In Macbeth (1606), Shakespeare’s representation of gender both adheres to contemporary notions of gender roles and subverts them. Lady Macbeth and Macbeth’s actions are uncharacteristic in that often, Lady Macbeth dominates her husband. In response to his fear at their sinister “deed”, Lady Macbeth inquires “Are you a man?” comparing her husband’s hallucination of the floating dagger to “A woman’s story at a winter’s fire”. These lines indicate a common knowledge between Shakespeare and his audience as to what constitutes masculinity and femininity; the oppositional placing of “woman” and “man” in her monologue cements their difference. The interrogative “man?” denotes Lady Macbeth’s agency and conversational dominance, establishing her own refusal to display the feminine traits she insults Macbeth for. This is both ironic and shocking coming from a female character, the irony perhaps furthered by the fact Lady Macbeth would have been played by a man.
Shakespeare’s representation of gender is complicated further by Lady Macbeth’s desire to escape her womanhood. In Act I, Lady Macbeth uses the imperative in her soliloquy: she cries “Unsex me here” to the “spirits”, suggesting her deep ambition to transcend her femininity. However, the unnaturalness and impossibility of the idea of “unsex[-ing]” only confirms the limitations of her wish. Shakespeare toys with this desire to escape femininity further, the oxymoronic “take my milk for gall” in Lady Macbeth call “come to my woman’s breasts” directly opposing her earlier image of breast milk as “of human kindness”. While modern critics might read Lady Macbeth’s story as an example of an early transgender narrative in theatre, in his time Shakespeare’s portrayal of Lady Macbeth’s self-contradiction might have in fact only confirmed the insanity or untrustworthiness of women at large. By the end of the play, Lady Macbeth is driven mad by the knowledge of her “deed”, a development which suggests her ultimate weakness and inability to handle the masculine power she so wished to achieve in being “unsex[ed]”. Ultimately, in Macbeth, it seems Shakespeare largely adheres to traditional notions of gender roles rather than subverting them.