Gender Roles in Lysistrata and Medea

Between 500 and 400 BC, Athens was shining light of civilization, brightening the dark world around it. Yet in this glimmering metropolis of democracy and reason, an indelible line divided the men from the women and the Athenian citizens for non-citizens. Only male citizens were able to take part in Athenian politics, and therefore able to affect change, while Athenian women were bound to the seclusion of their homes where they were allowed only to talk to their family and other women. While Greek men gained their honor and prestige from doing well in battle, and speaking well at the assembly, women seemed to acquire their honor and achieve moral excellence by birthing boys who then become men who could then gain honor in battle.

Both Eripides' Medea and Aristophanes' Lysistrata focus on the role of women in ancient Athens and the struggle for power between the sexes. While in her book The Making of the West Lynn Hunt says that "Women's exclusion from politics meant that their contributions to the city-state might be overlooked by men," the text of these two plays show that at least some men understood the important contributions that women made to society,