The Depiction of Women in Thesmophoriazusae

Thesmophoriazuae is a play by Aristophanes that is about the women of Athens planning to kill Euripides for his unkind portrayal of women in his plays. The play was originally preformed in either 410 or 411 in Athens (MacDowell 251). The women of the play are gathered at the annual festival of Thesmophoria in honor of Demeter and her daughter (MacDowell 259). The play takes place in the afternoon, which was the most important part of the festival (MacDowell 259). Euripides finds out they are planning his death at this festival, so he convinces his relative to dress in drag to plead his case to the women of Athens. When the women of the play discover that Euripides relative is a fraud, they hold him hostage. Euripides comes to his rescue, and reenacts his plays trying to create a diversion. The first play he reenacts is Telephos, when that fails he reenacts two more plays (MacDowell 266). On his third attempt he is discovered and promises to depict the women more favorably, and saves his relative.

The women in this play are complaining about the very thing this play does. Aristophanes is mocking these women by not providing them with sympathy or empowerment. The entire context of the play sheds a negative light on women. After seeing cross-dressers on stage, all women are seen as constructed, which de-values them. Aristophanes never intended for the play to have any sympathy for the women. He respected Euripides, and was using this play to mock the women. Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazusae badly depicts women through Euripides plays, their surface portrayal, the ambiguity of gender, and lack of sympathy.

The women of this play are badly portrayed on many dimensions. Euripides’ plays portray the women as drunk, sex-crazed, and deceitful. Taaffe writes that “Woman A alleges how Euripides represents women: as secretive, sex-crazed, tipplers, traitors, gossips, unclean, and a great evil for men” (Taaffe 89). When trying to save his relative, Euripides reenacts a part of his play Telephos (MacDowell 266).  After the relative is discovered, he quickly grabs a baby as hostage.  When the relative unclothes the baby he finds it is really a wineskin. He cut it’s “throat” and as the wine pours out dramatically the woman rushes to collect the wine or “blood.”

RELATIVE Burn me, but then I shall rip this open instantly.
FIRST WOMAN No, no, I adjure you, don't; do anything you like to me rather than that.

RELATIVE What a tender mother you are; but nevertheless I shall rip it open.

He tears open the wine-skin.

FIRST WOMAN  Oh, my beloved daughter! Mania, hand me the sacred cup, that I may at least catch the blood of my child.

 Euripides used his play Telephos to mock the women as drunks (MacDowell 266). MacDowell says Euripides, “shows women being led by love or other emotions into wrong conduct,” which can be seen in plays like Medea (MacDowell 252). Medea helps Jason steal the Golden Fleece from her father. Then Jason decides to leave Medea for the King of Corinth’s daughter, although he wants them all to live like a happy extended family. Medea’s jealousy and angry leads her to kill her children and Jason’s new wife. The content of Euripides plays is only way this production negatively depicts women.

The play itself through the women’s actions, reactions, and stories portrays women negatively, similar to Euripides depictions. The women of Thesmophoriazuae are known as liars. They are not mad at Euripides for his false depictions of women. They are mad at Euripides for telling the truth, and revealing their secrets. The relative is uncovered from his women disguise, because he is not a good liar, like the women of Athens. Lying is not the only bad trait women excel at in these Greek plays.

The women are skilled in the art of sneaking drinks. Wine sellers that shortchanged the women are listed among their enemies, which show the extreme importance of wine to women (MacDowell 263). One of their many complains about the reaction to Euripides plays is their husbands locking up wine and food. The Relatives random guess that the women started the festival drinking being correct represents the prevalence of the notion that the women of Athens drink excessively (MacDowell 261). It is a standing joke among the people of Athens that women are constantly having drinks in secret (MacDowell 261). The women’s bibulousness is not the only bad characteristic attributed them in Thesmophoriazuae.

Another way the women of Thesmophoriazuae are negatively depicted is as being sex-crazed. The women use their expertise in lying to constantly cheat-on their husbands without them finding out. Another of their many complains about the reaction to Euripides plays is their husbands locking the doors and putting the dogs out to scare away their lovers (MacDowell 264). Their husbands searching for hidden lovers when they come home, is another complainant of the constraints Euripides has put on their lives (MacDowell 264). When Relative is trying to blend in with the women, he tells a story of how “she” cheated on her husband shortly after their wedding night, but greasing the hinges to sneak out. Deceitful lovers, slaves who relay false advice or tell their husband about their lover are listed among the women’s traitors (MacDowell 264). Also, anyone who told that a woman was trying to smuggle a child into the house was considered a traitor (MacDowell 264). The women’s hatred of people revealing their deceitful ways in regards to covering up their secret affairs shows the women’s obsession with sex in this play. The women’s negative attributes are not the only way they are badly portrayed in this play.

Sometimes what Aristophanes does not say provides the negative portrayal of women in Thesmophoriazuae. In “Aristophanes and Athens” MacDowell says that, “None of these situations is presented with any real sympathy for the women” (MacDowell 265). Although some of the women’s actions in this play are deplorable, the play allows for no sympathy for the circumstances that made the women act this way. The women of this play often cheat on their husband, but they had no say in who they married (MacDowell 264). The custom of Athen’s was for the woman’s father to choose their husbands, which tend to be much older (MacDowell 264). With this knowledge that women were forced into a marriage with a much older man, the viewer could understand the women of Thesmophoriazuae adulterous ways. Aristophanes’ provides no sympathy for the woman of the play regarding the sneaking of children into their houses. The play doesn’t mention that the women were under a tremendous stress to produce a male heir or were divorced (MacDowell 265). Presenting the women’s deplorable actions without motives presents the women negatively.

The ambiguities of gender in this play further lead to negative impression of women. I agree with Taaffe’s assertion that Thesmophoriazuae “ works to misrepresents women and to make a joke of male actors’ attempts to portray female figures in tragedy and comedy” (Taaffe 78). It is not possible for the viewer to distinguish between one group of men playing women as funny and the other group as serious, by default they are all comical (Taaffe 88). The poet Agathon, the relative, and Kleisthenes all cross-dress on the stage of Thesmophoriazuae.

After Euripides uncovers the women’s plot to kill him, he asks his relative to dress as woman to pled his case to the women at the festival. He under goes many adjustments to his appearance to appear as a woman. He shaves off his facial hair, and pubic hair (Taaffe 84). Although he loses his beard he keeps the dark mask, making his appearance comical (MacDowell 258). When he is uncovered as a woman, they look for his phallus creating a comic scene. Relative’s comic scene involving him dressed as women mocks the women of his play. Besides the cross-dressing, the relative’s sexual advances towards Agathon create some sexual ambiguity (Taaffe 82). The relative is not the only cross dressing male in this play. Euripides friend, the poet and playwright Agathon has a feminine demeanor, and dresses in women’s clothing. He has many razors used to shave his beard, which was not tradition of Athenian men (Taaffe 84). When the relatives see him for the fist time he doesn’t recognize him as a man.

EURIPIDES That's the man they are bringing out yonder on the eccyclema.

AGATHON appears on the eccyclema, softly reposing on a bed, clothed in a saffron tunic, and surrounded with feminine toilet articles.
RELATIVE: I am blind then! I see no man here, I only see Cyrene

Another feminine characteristic leading to his sexual ambiguity is that he is weak. Starting as a young boy he was the passive partner in homosexual relationships, and continued it, as he grew older (MacDowell 254). Agathon gives many reasons for his cross-dressing. He says he dresses in drag to evoke feminine characters for his plays (MacDowell 256).

AGATHON: Old man, old man, I hear the shafts of jealousy whistling by my ears, but they do not hit me. My dress is in harmony with my thoughts. A poet must adopt the nature of his characters. Thus, if he is placing women on the stage, he must contract all their habits in his own person.

He also says he wears womens clothing to follow in the tradition of other poets (MacDowell 256). Agathon wears the feminine clothing to reflect his own nature (MacDowell 256). As Taaffe says it is important to note “Agathon does not mean to portray a woman on stage convincingly; he only dresses as a woman in order to compose the verses that a real actor eventually perform” (Taaffe 81). She goes a little to far in saying he only does it to write for his plays. No man would chronically dress like a woman just for his work unless he liked it. The viewer should remember Agathon feminine characteristic outside of cross-dressing. Agathon is not the only male character in this play that has feminine characteristics.

Kleisthenes is the last of the sexual ambiguous characters in this play, and is the recurring butt of Aristophanes jokes (MacDowell 257). His men’s mask lack a beard, because like Agathon he shaves his face. Like many other characters in this play he wear’s women’s clothing. Although men are not allowed in the festival of Thesmophoriazuae, he is allowed in because identifies with women (MacDowell 257). In some of Aristophanes’ other plays he engages in feminine activities such as weaving (MacDowell 257). Like Agathon, he engages in passive homosexual sex (MacDowell 257). Kleisthenes biological heritage and combination of male and female traits creates comical ambiguities of gender.

In Greek plays women were not worthy of being on stage; therefore, men played all parts. Greeks plays used masks depicting exaggerated emotions that amplified the volume. Also, these masks provided the distinction between men and women (MacDowell 258). The men wore a mask with a beard that was dark brown to represent a tan from being outdoors (MacDowell 258). The women wore white masks, because they were pale from staying indoors (MacDowell 258). The cross-dressers in this play is made even more comical by the fact that the cross-dressers are wearing men’s masks.

The presence of these constructed women undermines the ‘real’ women of this play. “The ‘real’ women of the Thesmophoria provide a backdrop for the female impersonations of the other male characters,” wrote Taaffe in her book “Aristophanes and Women” (Taaffe 100). The relative and Poet Agathon are constructed on stage as women, before the viewer has seen a woman character on stage. All of the women of this play would be played by men dressing as women, since women were not allowed to be on stage (MacDowell 257). While dressing the Relative, when he was half between man and women, “ there is a pause in his transformation to allow us to ponder and enjoy the process,” wrote Taaffe. (Taaffe 84). The men playing women, did not speak in falsetto instead they used their deep voice, and masculine stature. (MacDowell 258). Since the men did not alter their voice or stature the small distinction of mask color, and beard would signify them (MacDowell 258). The viewers cannot forget the previous creations of Agathon, and relative, which undermine the ‘real’ women of Thesmophoriazuae. Because the viewer cannot forget the previous construction of Euripides’ relative, the poet Agathon, and Kliethenes, all of the women of this play are seen as constructed. The construction of women makes it impossible for the viewer to take them seriously.

The cross-dressing men that are constructed on the stage for us are placed next to ‘real’ women, which are actually women played by men. The play starts with knowledge that Euripides plays depict women as drunks, liars, and sex crazed. At the end of the play, Euripides even reenacts some of his plays. The women of play’s actions show them as liars, adulterers, and drunks. Thesmophoriazusae negatively depicts women by putting real women next to constructed women, thru Euripides plays, and the women’s negative actions lacking motives.

Works Cited

Mac Dowell, Douglas M. “Women at the Thesmophoria.” Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays. New York: 1995.

Taaffe, Lauren K. “Men as Women: Thesmophorizausae.” Aristophanes and Women. New York: 1993.

Aristophanes. The Thesmaphoriazusa Translated by Alan H. Sommerstein, 1994.