Similarities Between Medea And Lysistrata

Women are dangerous. Hundreds upon hundreds of works will tell you that women are these dangerous, cunning, and devious figures who desire mayhem. Like Medea, a clever and foreign woman who seeks revenge on her husband by her own methods, or like Lysistrata, an assertive woman who refused to move until her demands were met. Back then, societies were male-dominating and portrayed these women as a symbol of danger and shame, establishing a standard on how women should behave; however, the function of women in these works revealed societies own insecurities of hierarchy. Medea served as an example for foreigners, someone, deemed by society, who is less civil, uncontrollable, and unknown to the people in the community. Lysistrata is viewed as a resistance to society’s standards and control, revealing the …show more content…
The male-dominated society consistently attempts to outcast these women, only to end up demonstrating society’s own arrogance. By evaluating the function of Medea and Lysistrata as a societal danger, we can perceive society’s controlling tendency towards women displays their anxieties of maintaining power and promotes arrogance for males to preserve the idea of being above women.
The Medea told the story of Medea, a foreigner, who struggled with her marriage relationship and prejudice of the community she lived in. Medea is described as “a clever woman, versed in evil arts” (283) and displays several cunning and manipulative actions, like deceiving most characters in the play, but she describes herself as an outcast, stating she is just “something he won in a foreign land” (254). The community that surrounds Medea now encourages the separation between her and them by referring to her as a