Female Roles in Early Theatres

It's an interesting trend that a lot of cultures excluded women from participation in theatre for some time. For that matter, some theatrical traditions still exclude them. I simply can't imagine the role of Juliet being played by a teenage boy, arguably the most awkward of people. How did audiences not laugh when the boy said "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?" Naturally, if having boys play female roles was what the audience came to expect than they would probably get over it. But were there people who wished women could play the roles? Were there women dying to be in a play but knew that it was like committing social suicide? What keeps coming to mind is the movie Shakespeare in Love where Gywneth Paltrow's character dresses like a boy so she can play Juliet. But that's not exactly historical fact. Obviously, Elizabethan England was not the only culture that didn't permit actresses. Kabuki in Japan remains a male-only theatre. Do people feel that women would make the performance worse? I can't wrap my head around that.