Liberal Feminism in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata

Abstract

Lysistrata is a play telling about the condition of war between Athens and Sparta. The terrible condition of war got attention of an Athenian woman named Lysistrata. Lysistrata gathered all of women from Athens and Sparta to make a plan. They made a commitment that they will refuse to have sex with their husbands until the men eager to stop the war. This research focusses on the liberal feminism idea that is represented in the play. This play exposes liberal feminism idea through women characters in the drama, especially the character of Lysistrata as the main female character in the drama. By using theory of representation the researcher find problems about liberal feminism in ancient Greek era and also the discourse about liberal feminism idea that is represented through the play. The researcher also finds the discourse behind the play, those discourse are about the author’s critiques that occur in his work. This research is a qualitative research which is a type of research that concerns with collecting and analyzing data without using any numerical data. The data in this research are taken from some dialogues and quotations from a drama entitled Lysistrata written by Aristophanes and also from some books, journals and web site. The data processing is started by classifying and verifying data that have been taken from the drama. The next step is categorizing and analyzing the data that describe the liberal feminism in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata. Next, it is analyzing the liberal feminism issues such as equal liberty, equal right and also the women’s suffrage in the play by using liberal feminism approach as a tool to help me to prove the liberal feminism issues in the play. Next, I look for some information about the author such as his background and his literary works. I also need some information about the real condition in ancient Greek era in order to look for the author’s perspective about what happened in ancient Greek era. I need some information about the background of condition during the war between Sparta and Athenian, especially the condition of women at that time. In this step the researcher uses theory of representation by Stuart Hall in order to discuss the discourse about liberal feminism idea that represented through the drama. In this part I will observe the real condition and characteristic of women in ancient Greek era and then relate it with the women condition and their characteristic in the drama. The discourse that I get from the observation can be used to see the author’s perspective in the drama and also his critical position. We also can find the author’s critique that appears in his play. The result of this research shows that Aristophanes exposes the condition of his society during Peloponnesian war where the women in ancient Greek era are seen as weak creature that just must stay at home. They do not have freedom and they do not get equal right like the men get. In Lysistrata, Aristophanes shows women as strong, brave, active and clever people that are different with the real condition and characteristic of women in ancient Greek era. By exposing women in his play differently, Aristophanes shows his feminist perspective. He exposes the discourse of liberal feminism idea through his play. Lysistrata also shows the critiques of the author about the condition in ancient Greek era especially the women’s condition. He shows his critique about the women condition who got discrimination, the women empowerment and also the reminder that men need women in their life.