Gender and Sexuality in Aristophanes' Lysistrata

Introduction: Lysistrata and Sexualized Politics

Lysistrata is one of the eleven plays by Aristophanes that has survived over time. The original performance occurred in classical Athens, reportedly in 411 BC. The play is considered a comedy — an account of one woman's unique goal to end the Peloponnesian War. Over the course of the play, Lysistrata persuades the women of Greece to withhold all sexual satisfaction from their lovers and husbands as a tool designed to force the men to negotiate peace.

This strategy, however, incites a battle between the sexes. Because of its use of sex, its engagement with questions of gender, and its treatment of war, Aristophanes' Lysistrata has been recognized as one of the earliest exposés of sexualized politics in a predominantly male-dominated society. The implications of the production are far-reaching, and it has been used extensively to draw parallels to modern society and the relationship between gender, sex, and the power of influence.

The play's opening exchange sets the tone for everything that follows:

Lysistrata: "There are a lot of things about us women that sadden me, considering how men see us as rascals."
Calonice: "As indeed we are."

Aristophanes chose to characterize women as hedonistic and sly, which may reflect how women of his time were generally regarded — as beings in need of a firm hand and guidance from the men in their lives. However, he painted Lysistrata as an extraordinary woman with a tremendous sense of individual and societal responsibility. She successfully convinces the women of Greece to withhold sex — something men of the era considered their right — and the oath the women take is sealed with a solemn and binding vow.

Aristophanes places two choruses within the play: one of older men and one of older women. At Lysistrata's urging, the chorus of women seizes the Acropolis, which holds the treasures of the state, without which the men cannot continue funding the war. The chorus of old men threatens to burn down the Acropolis if the women do not surrender. What ultimately compels the men to act as Lysistrata envisioned is their desperation for sex. One after another, the men are shown in compromising positions, clearly struggling to endure the limits the women have imposed. After much squabbling, the men reconcile, the war ends, and the men's sexual burdens are relieved.

Some have argued that modern adaptations of Lysistrata are rendered in a pacifist or feminist style. Literary scholars, however, maintain that the original work was neither pacifist in nature nor decidedly feminist. Moreover, when male characters are portrayed as empathetic to the female condition, classical dramatic poets from Athens are said to have continued to reinforce sexual stereotyping of women as "irrational creatures in need of protection from themselves and from others." Arguably, Lysistrata is said to have accepted the authority of the men regarding the war, only after realizing that if the war continued there would be no men available to stop it and protect the women. Still others argue that Lysistrata was an empowered woman who recognized the weakness of men and used the innate sexual power of women to bring a peaceful end to a wasteful war. The discussion below critically examines the role of gender and sex as a means of raising social awareness, and explores the differences posited between the psyches of men and women.

Defining Gender and Sexuality

There have been many definitions and meanings proposed when discussing gender. The historical definition characterizes gender as "things we treat differently because of their inherent differences." More generally, gender is defined as a range of characteristics used to distinguish men from women, particularly in relation to male and female attributes. Depending on the contextual frame of reference, these distinguishing characteristics vary across social role, gender identity, and biological sex. In 1955, noted sexologist John Money introduced the terminological distinction between biological sex and gender as a societal role. Prior to his influential work, it was uncommon to use the word "gender" to refer to anything other than grammatical categories.

Alongside age, gender is considered one of the universal dimensions on which socially driven status differences are determined. Unlike sex or sexuality — which are biological and physiological phenomena — gender is considered a social construct that delineates the culturally and socially prescribed roles that men and women are expected to adhere to, or in the case of women, acquiesce to. Gerda Lerner, in The Creation of Patriarchy, argues that gender is "the costume, a mask, a straitjacket in which men and women dance their unequal dance." Alan Wolfe maintained in "The Gender Question" that "of all the ways that one group has systematically mistreated another, none is more deeply rooted than the way men have subordinated women. All other discriminations pale by comparison."

The categorization of females and males into social roles creates binaries in which individuals feel compelled to exist at one end of a linear spectrum and identify as either woman or man. Communities interpret these binaries — or biological differences between women and men — to generate a set of social expectations that determine behaviors deemed appropriate for each sex and define their rights, power, resources, and health behaviors. Although the specific degree and nature of these differences vary from one society to another, men are most often favored, which creates an imbalance of power and gender inequality in most if not all countries.

Michel Foucault argued that as sexual subjects, humans are objectified by power — which is not a structure or institution, but rather a name attributed to a "complex strategical situation." Because of this power, individual attributes, behaviors, and attitudes are determined, and individuals become part of an epistemologically and ontologically constructed system of labels. For example, being a woman categorizes one as female, and being female is taken to imply that one is emotional, weak, and irrational — incapable of the actions frequently attributed to men.

Judith Butler, author of Gender Trouble, argues that sex and gender function more like nouns and verbs. She asserts that her actions are limited because she is a woman: "I am not permitted to construct my gender and sex willy-nilly. This is so because gender is politically and therefore socially controlled. Rather than 'woman' being something one is, it is something one does." Feminist biologist Anne Fausto-Sterling repudiates the biological-versus-social-determinism debate and advocates for deeper analysis of how interactions between the social environment and the biological being shape an individual's capacities and abilities. Feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir introduced the notion of existentialism and the experiences of women in her famous formulation: "One is not born a woman, one becomes one."

Just as there is a wide range of definitions and philosophical frameworks regarding gender, the same is true of sexuality. For some, human sexuality is defined as how individuals experience erotic sensations and express themselves as sexual beings — the capacity they have for erotic responses and the awareness of themselves as male or female. More broadly, human sexuality describes the way in which an individual is attracted to another of the opposite sex (heterosexuality), the same sex (homosexuality), no one (asexuality), or both sexes (bisexuality). Human sexuality can also encompass aspects of culture, law, philosophy, politics, religion, and moral ideology.

The classic nature-versus-nurture debate addresses whether natural or innate qualities, or personal experiences, are more responsible for individual differences in behavioral and physical traits. The notion that individuals acquire most or all of their behavioral characteristics from nurture was originally proposed by John Locke, who argued that human development occurs as a direct result of environmental influences. The psychological aspects of human sexuality, by contrast, are understood to generate significant emotional and psychological responses. From a sociocultural perspective, human sexuality can be understood as a component of social life governed by implied rules of conduct and the concept of the status quo — one shaped, and potentially transformed, by external forces such as mass media, politics, and social movements like the sexual revolution and the rise of feminism.

Theoretical Overview: From Ancient Greece to the Modern Era

Theories regarding gender and sexuality date back to ancient Rome and Greece. Particularly noteworthy is the relatively broad acceptance of same-sex relations in ancient history and culture — between men, between women, and between men and boys. One of the earliest proto-feminist voices from this era is Sappho, who has been especially influential because of her expression and lesbianism. She is one of the few, if not the only, female literary voices that survive from ancient Rome and Greece.

In Making Sex, Thomas Laqueur examines how sexuality from the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans through the Renaissance was structured very differently than in the nineteenth century or in modern times. He points specifically to the influence of science prior to the mid-eighteenth century and the tendency toward a perception of men and women as versions of a single sex: women were seen as lesser men, with a uterus and clitoris understood as inverted versions of the male scrotum and penis. Given this one-sex model, the differences between men and women would not have seemed as significant as they appear in later theoretical constructs. For Laqueur, both men and women were seen as unequal parts of a larger cosmological order in which sexuality, not gender, was historically determined. As he writes:

"This book, then, is about the making not of gender, but of sex. I have no interest in denying the reality of sex or of sexual dimorphism as an evolutionary process. But I want to show on the basis of historical evidence that almost everything one wants to say about sex — however sex is understood — already has in it a claim about gender. Sex, in both the one-sex and the two-sex worlds, is situation; it is explicable only within the context of battles over gender and power."

In this way, Laqueur aligned himself with poststructuralist and Foucauldian thought, opposing even the most traditional feminist distinctions between one's bodily sex (nature) and one's acquired gender (nurture).

Many scholars identify the eighteenth century as a period of transition in the understanding of sexuality and gender. During this period, the foundation for the "naturalization" of gender categories was established, reinforcing the belief that gendered behavior was a biological matter — in essence, that biology was destiny. Medical science and the discovery of the incommensurable differences between female and male bodies made way for a strict binary system. As Laqueur observes, "Sometime in the eighteenth century, sex as we know it was invented." For the first time, men and women were seen as opposites across most domains: women were regarded as passionless and passive, men as sexually charged and aggressive. Particularly relevant to this analysis is the concurrent rise of Enlightenment values — fraternity, liberty, and equality — which many women philosophers argued needed to be made applicable to all of humanity. Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman exemplifies these Enlightenment values and was instrumental in calling for women's own distinct, inalienable rights.

The idea of "natural" gender distinctions came to dominate nineteenth-century thought. The conception of normative sexuality centered on the middle-class family was consolidated during this era, though many non-normative forms of sexuality — including non-heterosexuality and non-procreative sex — were also expressed. The public and private spheres were treated as complementary but separate domains of middle-class culture, products of industrialization, urbanization, and significant economic growth. The public sphere was male-dominated — the realm of money-making, politics, business, industry, and empire. The private sphere was considered feminine — the space of hearth, home, nurture, sympathy, child-rearing, and piety. In this system, women had minimal access to the public sphere.

The theoretical debate continued into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with an increased demand for change played out in the political arena — particularly surrounding enfranchisement. From the suffragettes to the flappers, through the equal rights movement, women gradually began to realize the political implications of issues most pertinent to them. Social awareness of gender and sex, and of the differences between men and women, has continued to grow ever since.

Conclusion

The original production of Aristophanes' Lysistrata took place many centuries ago. The story of a woman who united other women to change the course of a fatal war continues to excite and enthrall those who see it as a strong act of feminism or a pro-woman position. Because of the play's enduring impact — despite having been written as a comedy — it has been reenacted repeatedly and has served as a foundational text for a great deal of scholarly discourse and debate.

Inarguably, Lysistrata was an extraordinary and influential character. She successfully enlisted women who were historically relegated to subordinate positions to rally together and withhold the one thing that could change the face of the war — sex. The chorus of older women, empowered by the actions of the younger women, played their part by seizing the state's treasures to cut off the war's financing. Whether one credits Lysistrata's success to intelligence, cunning, or assertiveness, she capitalized on the sexual power of the women around her to achieve the outcome she desired. For some, this can be seen as a further subjugation of the other women: at no point did Lysistrata herself participate in any sexual withholding, and the question of whether she was married or involved with a man is conveniently absent from the storyline.

What many tend to focus on is the end result, which for many is what matters most. Lysistrata orchestrated a peaceful end to a fatal war. The issues of sex, gender, and the male and female psyche all played a significant role in how events unfolded. Whether one views this from a pro-woman, feminist, or pacifist perspective, or whether one opts to see it as a patriarchally shaped deployment of feminine leverage — playing the one card women could control given the era in which the action took place — it is undeniable that Lysistrata accomplished the mission and goals she set out to achieve.

Inasmuch as the physical act of sex was instrumental in achieving reconciliation and peace, sex can be regarded as having brought heightened awareness to the indelible consequences of war. Inasmuch as gender was instrumental in forging the bond among the women and in the negotiations that ended the war, gender can be seen as an instrument of change. And inasmuch as the male and female psyches differ regarding the importance of war, and as the power of the female psyche was able to influence the actions of the men in this situation, the differences between the male and female psyche can also be seen as viable tools for significantly impacting the outcome of a conflict. Lysistrata remains a rich and provocative text precisely because it raises all of these questions without resolving them cleanly, leaving readers and scholars to wrestle with them across the centuries.