The Female Gender as a Political "Other": An ideological Reading of Aristophanes' Lysistrata

Abstract

The concept of Otherness is the process by which societies and groups exclude 'Others' whom they want to subordinate or who do not fit into their society/group. The ancient Greek society was one of such in which the female gender was perceived as being in contradistinction to the masculinity of the ‘Greek Glory’. Aristophanes’ Lysistrata portrays the gender politics or battle of the sexes, an exposé of the gender role contradictions in the ancient Greek society. This paper attempts a reading of the play within the context of the perceptions and receptions of such feminist/gender polemics and in the light of contemporary ideological hermeneutics.