Exploring Gender Dynamics in Ancient Greece

This statement reinforces the essential idea that women only took action because of the foolishness men displayed.24 In the scene where the Chorus of Women25 blocked the doors of the acropolis with bolts and bars, the Chorus of Old Men approached the Acropolis and violently threatened the women, exclaiming that they would burn them to death and beat them, “I, having rear’d a pile, Would set thy friends on fire”.26 The insults and violent threats show how the old men immediately used aggression instead of trying to reason, lacking any real logic and common sense.27 In response to the menacing remarks, the chorus of old women dump buckets of water on the men, cleaning them in a way from their current mentality.28 To think that the men were willing to burn down their own sacred acropolis just to protect it from women is a preposterous idea; in fact many men ran away when they approached the women for fear that they would harm their masculine parts.29 This ironic cycle reveals the true obsession males have with war, since they tend to show violent acts not only in war but inside the home, or acropolis.30

Even if Aristophanes does use women to scorn men for their decisions, he also delineates the importance of women who bring domestic life into the cities center.31 All the more accentuating their importance when Lysistrata explains to the magistrate the significance women have in Greek life.32 She explains that women bear

Lysistrata is a work of fiction inspired by real life events, and although the outcome of the play did not have a vast effect on the Peloponnesian war itself, it did however, bring up a subtle notion of female strength and wit. Although being comical in the play, the idea of letting women be in charge of political issues remained a question that other politicians, writers, and philosophers57 pondered on through continuing