At one point in the essay, she remarks that she cannot remember any instance in the course of her reading where two women were depicted as friends until Jane Austen's day, which is to say, until female authors did so. Had she completely forgotten Hermia and Helena, Rosalind and Celia, Beatrice and Hero, Desdemona and Emilia, Hermione and Paulina? I couldn't believe that. Woolf read Shakespeare obsessively throughout her life and alluded to his plays throughout her novels. Were we meant to contradict here again? To wave our arms and say, "Well, what about Shakespeare?" And if she considered the depiction of female friendships characteristic of a woman's authorship, then Shakespeare . . . 

—Elizabeth Winkler, Shakespeare was a Woman and Other Heresies (ellipses in original)