Lysistrata
...g a play. Aristophanes could have been a supporter of women’s rights and this was his way of paving the road for further work. Most Greek plays involved the discussion of religion, politics, and sex. (Lysistrata 1) The play made the women out to be very strong socially. It was not hard for the women to persuade the men to change their minds about the war. The women were from all Greek city states, it was a mixture of the different cultures. All the women were sexually active according to the book, the women used their bodies as tools of trade. They used sex as a power over the men to get what they wanted. “ And that’s exactly what will save us all: the little gowns, the perfumes, and the slippers, the make-up and the see through lingerie!” (Lysistrata 24- {46-48}) Together the Spartan and Theban women thought they were going to save Greece in the time of war by holding what they thought was the key to the men’s minds and bodies. Now, going back to written history we see that women didn’t act this way in public. Athenian women basically bore and raised the children in their home, they didn’t usually make any public appearances unless it was special occasions, they were responsible for making their homes livable for their families, they were very subservient and had no formal education, and by no means could they be with any other men. Spartan women on the other hand had more freedom to do things. Spartan men as you know were only home on the weekends due to military obligations, so the women could go into public and do the necessary things that they needed to do, the Spartan women were chiefly responsible for everything in the household. The husbands were gone to war, the women were raising the children and keeping themselves and their households ready for when their husbands returned. I think that Aristophanes wrote this play to bring out a little humor during a time in this period when the city states w...