Inequalities In Lysistrata

970 Words4 Pages
Throughout history, women have had to deal with many inequalities, not even having the same political and civil rights as men have had. Ancient Greece was no different, it was a male dominated world and women were usually thought of as property; they were there for raising children and meeting their husbands every need. Although women had little to no rights in Ancient Greece, there were a couple rights they did have, which was the authority to bury their dead and the right to their own physical sexuality. In Sophocles’ tragedy Antigone, her right to bury her dead brother was taken away so she stood up for what she believed to be morally right and went on to bury her brother. Aristophanes comedy Lysistrata, shows that when Lysistrata wanted to bring an end to the Peloponnesian war and have the Spartan and Athenian men to arrive to a peace…show more content…
Lysistrata, and other Athenian and Spartan women, started questioning the purpose and the meaning of the Peloponnesian War which had been going on for years. The women were tired of the men carrying on this never ending war; Lysistrata decides to gather all the women together in secret and figure out a way for them to get their men to come to some sort of peace. This would have been a very difficult task at the time because women had no political rights, so they used the one tool they knew they could, consensual sex with their husbands. The consensual part is a very important key to this decision, men were much stronger than women and could easily take what they wanted. However, for these men there was no fun or excitement for them to do this, they wanted their wives to be willing and playful with them. Not only did the women stop having consensual sex with their husbands, but they also took over the Acropolis, the treasury, so the men not only go without sex but also had no money to continue on with their
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