Gender in Plays

Question 1

What is useful about plays for the study of gender relations?

Answer 1

They often abstract social values and dynamics from real life

Question 2

What are the drawbacks in using plays as a means of understanding the experience of women? (2)

Answer 2

Written by and likely, largely, for men; fantastical and exaggerated elements for purpose of entertainment

Question 3

What is the main plot of Euripides’ Medea?

Answer 3

Medea, a former princess of the kingdom of Colchis, and the wife of Jason, finds her position in the Greek world threatened as Jason leaves her for a Greek princess of Corinth. Medea takes vengeance on Jason by murdering his new wife as well as her own two sons, after which she escapes to Athens to start a new life.

Question 4

What are the themes, relating to gender relations, of Euripides’ Medea? (3)

Answer 4

lack of female autonomy, female agency over children and household, and the uses of women in public sphere to the advantage mainly of men

Question 5

What demonstrates a lack of autonomy (in life, body, and spirit) for women in Medea? (4)

Answer 5

lines 230-251:
‘take him as master of our body’ (230)
if not a good housewife ‘better to die’ (243)
‘we women must look to one soul alone’ (247)
‘I would rather stand in the line of battle three times than give birth once’ (250-1)

Question 6

What shows a lack of care for female emotions or experience in Medea?(2)

Answer 6

Tutor referring to M as ‘the fool’ (61)
Jason doesn’t seem to understand why M is upset that she wasn’t asked to consent (already disrespectful) and blames her for her own negative feelings and sadness. (584-626)

Question 7

What demonstrates the agency of women in the care of children and the household in Medea?(2)

Answer 7

Tutor argues Jason has no right to influence his son’s lives due to him abandoning old marriage ties and thus essentially becoming an enemy of the household. (74-84)
M implores that Jason’s money goes to the welfare of their sons and their later careers/success (609-675)

Question 8

In what way is the use of women for status and familial prestige by men shown in Medea?(2)

Answer 8

M accuses Jason of marrying the princess in order to access the advantages of her standing in old age as opposed to M’s foreign status. (591-2)
Jason argues he remarried into royalty in order to bring up new sons in a wealthy and prosperous household. (594-7)

Question 9

What shows the use of women as political tools/weapons in Medea?

Answer 9

M asks Jason to persuade Creon to not exile her sons and get his new wife to do the same offering gifts in return. (934-951)

Question 10

What is the plot of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata?

Answer 10

The women of Athens and Sparta go about trying to convince their men to stop the Pelo War by two means: sex strike and seizure of the Athenian acropolis. Both are led by Lysistrata and come to a close at the resolution of the play.

Question 11

What is the chorus for Aristophanes’ Lysistrata? What is their dramatic role (interp by Sommerstein)?

Answer 11

A group of older women and men, very much split into two warring factions. They are entirely separate from the action of the play but act as a reflection and counterpoint of the gender war themes in the main plot.

Question 12

In what ways is Aris’ Lys realistic? (2) Unrealistic? (2)

Answer 12

Set in contemporary(411) events of the Greek world and reflects the often conflicting gender realtions. Hyperbolic and comedic genre distorts experiences and the happenings are v unlikely e.g. women taking the acrop.

Question 13

What are the themes, relating to gender relations, of Aris’ Lysistrata? (3)

Answer 13

Lack of autonomy and consideration for women, female agency over children/the household, and female sexual desire and desirability.

Question 14

How does Aris’ Lysistrata show lack of autonomy and consideration for women? (3)

Answer 14

Lys and the other women talk of missing their husbands deeply as lovers and fathers of their children. (99-120)
Abuse (sexual and physical) and subsequent submittance of women to their husbands. (160-167)
Lys describing women being effected by the decisions of the men abt the war but not being listened to and feeling as if they couldn’t speak up. (508-520)

Question 15

What shows female agency over children/the household in Aris’ Lysistrata? (3)

Answer 15

Calonice saying women are troubled if out of the house for too long for they have too much to do in the house: are helping their husbands, waking a slave, or caring for a baby/child. (16-19)
Lys says that women deal with household finances completely. (495)
Cinesias (husband) and Myrrhine (wife) interaction that shows their baby is cared for solely by females (mother and slave(s)) and that the husband is largely absent from this. (878-890)

Question 16

What shows female sexual desire in Aris’ Lysistrata? (2)

Answer 16

Lys talking of the lack of lovers for the women and a reference to a Milesian dildo. (107-112)
Lys announces her idea of a sex strike and all the women become agitated at the thought of abstaining from sex or more specifically cock and balls. (124-148)

Question 17

What shows female sexual desirability in Aris’ Lysistrata? (4)

Answer 17

Men having erect phalluses throughout the play and being pained at the women refusing sex.
Descriptions of the ornamentation of the women with clothes, make up, and accessories. (42-53)
Women’s bodies being highly sexualised by other women and them talking about pubic hair and its grooming for aesthetic purposes. (79-92)
Lysistrata references women walking around in sheer underwear, their pubic hair plucked tidily into the shape of a triangle, in order to arouse their husbands. (149-154)

Question 18

What was the relationship of Chrysis to Demeas? What did she do that prompted the assumption of bad feeling by D and her exile from the house?

Answer 18

She was an ex-hetaira from Samia (famous for its prostitutes) who had been brought into the household of Demeas with his son Moschion. She took Moschion’s baby under her own care and acted as if it were her own making it appear as if it were hers and deameas’ which would have been too much like a real wife.

Question 19

From what do the complications of SAMIA derive from?

Answer 19

The relationship of Chrysis and the baby in the eyes of all the characters.

Question 20

Why does Demeas, upon finding out about the baby under Chrysis’ care, instantly want to kick her out?

Answer 20

To assert his control over his own household after it appears he has ‘married a hetaira’ (130) i.e. she has violated her social roles and status.

Question 21

What is emphasised more in connection to gender in SAMIA rather than direct gender roles?

Answer 21

social roles that are inherently gendered (hetaira or head of the household)

Question 22

What does Menander present as the purpose of marriage in SAMIA?

Answer 22

‘the sowing of legitimate children’ (727)

Question 22

What is an archetypal trope of Chrysis in Demeas’ perception in SAMIA?

Answer 22

Deceptiveness, with the woman having their son ‘in secret’

Question 23

How is the deceptive ‘feminine’ characteristic continually represented in New Comedy?

Answer 23

Female characters SECRETLY rescuing illegitimate/unwanted babies

Question 24

What is the second thing Demeas assumes wrongly in SAMIA?

Answer 24

Moschion and Chrys (“my helen” (337)) have had an affair and she was the seducter because he is a moral man and could not possibly do such a thing against his father whilst she is a “a whore and a curse” (348)

Question 25

When kicking Chrys out what is the basis on which Demeas believes her to be inferior?

Answer 25

Socioeconomic state - she was poor before she met him and he took her in but she has come to take that for granted, ending in her being poor and on the streets again (374-80)

Question 26

What does Demeas believe Chrysis was motivated by the whole time under his roof?

Answer 26

his money and stable living situation (379)

Question 27

What is the natural state assumed of Chrysis in SAMIA?

Answer 27

She has and always will be a hetaira (her kind) (390-97)

Question 28

What dangers faced by a prostitute does Demeas allude to in his threats when exiling her from his house? (4) Why was this unusual?

Answer 28

Death from alcoholism, risk of unemployment, declining appeal due to age, and general poverty. He’s the only New Comic male to be under no illusion as to the realities of chrysis’ occupation.

Question 29

What happens in the Ecclesiazusae?

Answer 29

Women assume control of the government, enforce sexual equity for the old and unattractive, ban private wealth
Meant to criticise the government at the time; shameful effeminacy of the men in government