Sometimes what people appear to be isn't always who they really are. This is a major idea in Macbeth Act 1 and is shown throughout the rest of the play as well. A quote that exemplifies this would "Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to cry 'Hold, hold!'  (Enter Macbeth) Great Glamis, worth Cawdor, greater than both by the all-hail hereafter, they letters have transported me beyond this ignorant present, and I feel no the future in the instant" (1.5.48-56) Lady Macbeth, who says this quote, changes her character very suddenly, when Macbeth enters. In the beginning of this quote, she is very angry and talks about how she wishes that she could just kill the king, because she knows her husband won't do it. When Macbeth walks in though, she talks sweetly to him, and very nicely, not at all like she was talking in the beginning. She wants to talk Macbeth into killing the king, and to do this she is acting very sweet around him. Machiavelli would definitely approve of this idea, in fact, he had some advice similar to what she is doing now. His advice was that you don't have to have all good qualities, but you must seem like you do. Lady Macbeth definitely is not sweet like she appears to be, but she is doing that because she wants something. Another example of this tactic would be "The eye wink at the hand" (1.5.52). This is saying that you should ignore whatever bad deed you do. In Macbeth's case he wants to become king (which is good) but he has to kill to get there (which is bad). This relates to Machiavelli’s idea, because if he’s king he would seem very good, but the truth is that he murdered somebody.

Today, there is no specific way that men and women are supposed should act. Both genders can vote, have different jobs, can stay home and cook and clean, or do anything else that once only a certain gender could do.