Sex-Strikes In Aristophanes 'Lysistrata'

Sex-strikes have been used in history to prevent and end wars since the early 1600s, but first written about in the play Lysistrata by Aristophanes in 411 B.C. The main premise of Lysistrata has had a lasting effect politically on the way that certain events have been improved and averted. The way that the women were written by Aristophanes was advanced for the time period that the play had taken place. Having the experience of a play differs drastically than reading it to yourself, quietly in your head. Walker Percy’s “The Loss of the Creature”, explains that one must explore things for oneself to be able to understand and gain experience from it. Lysistrata exemplifies Percy's ideas because all of the women in the play are experiencing what is happening. The women are not sitting at home waiting for the men to come home to tell them what is happening, the women are living it and seeing firsthand what is happening and not only are the women seeing what is happening but also heavily
In scene four of Lysistrata, Myrrhina had not been home and left her husband Cinesias to care for their baby, “You see? The child hasn’t been washed for a week! How could you do that to your baby?…My poor baby! Doesn’t your father take care of you at all?” (Aristophanes 4). Aristophanes shows Myrrhina and all of the other women in Athens as capable of having the power to end the war. Myrrhina gives up her household duties of cooking and taking care of her child for something that she believes in. Walker Percy’s idea shines through in Lysistrata because the women decide to force the men to make peace, “My sisters, if we really mean to make the men make peace” (Aristophanes 1). The entire concept of Lysistrata is an example of “The Loss of the Creature” because throughout the whole book the women are directly involved, they all come together to put an end to the