Summary
Scene 2. A magistrate enters and notes that the women of the community are at it again, "with their partying and their tambourines." The leader of the male chorus tells the magistrate that the women dumped water on him and made it look like he peed himself. The magistrate fires back that it is the men's own fault because they "encourage them in their wantonness." He discusses the fact that the men encourage a culture of promiscuity and sexual permissiveness, which has created this situation.
When Lysistrata enters, she tells the men that they do not need crowbars to get through the gates, just common sense. The magistrate orders someone to arrest Lysistrata, but she tells him that if they arrest her, they will be sorry. "Lay one hand on her, and I'll knock you senseless," says Calonice, entering. The magistrate orders her arrest as well, but Myrrhina enters and tells them not to.
As the men advance, Lysistrata tells them that there are four more battalions of women, armed and ready to fight. Lysistrata yells, "Attack, staunch ladies, bold allies! Attack barmaids, attack baker women, attack my garlic sellers, my grain sellers, my egg sellers, slap them and insult them!"
The women all enter and fight back against the men, "using loaves of bread, strings of garlic, eggs, and kitchen utensils." They manage to overpower the men, as the magistrate marvels at the fact that they are not usually so "thirsty for glory." The men begin to chant, "Women are beasts! Women are beasts! They stole the Acropolis! Women are beasts!" Lysistrata tells the men that they have taken the Acropolis in order to bring an end to the war.
"That's what you think the war is about, money?" says the magistrate, as Lysistrata insists, "That’s what every dispute is about, corrupt politicians trying to find a way to steal. Well, they’re not getting a single piece of silver out of here." Lysistrata insists that they will hold onto the money, and that the war is not important. When the chorus of men suggest that the war is about protecting security, Lysistrata tells them, "We'll keep you safe, whether you like it or not."
"What makes you think you can meddle in matters of war and peace?" the magistrate asks, to which Lysistrata replies, "All I’ve done recently is to sit at home, listening to my husband and the rest of you make mistakes and mismanage your affairs. When it got too much, when you were about to do something really foolish, I would just say 'How did it go in the Assembly today, dear? Are we any closer to peace?' To which my husband would respond 'What’s it to you? Hold your tongue!' ... As for me, I held my tongue. Soon you all would do something even more foolish and wrongheaded, and still I would say sweetly 'My dear, don’t you think that last decree was just a little foolhardy?' And, in a vicious, angry mood, my husband would respond 'Just go back to your weaving, if you know what’s good for you. War is for men and men only!'"
The magistrate sees nothing wrong with this, but Lysistrata suggests that women ought to be able to give advice when matters of war and politics get messy. The women insist that the magistrate is just making death more and more inevitable, taunting him about his own funeral.
Chorus 2. The men sing about how women are "the pawns of those Spartan dogs," and that their democracy will crumble if they can't "copulate." The leader of the men then suggests that they cannot let the women get away with their protest, or else they will dominate. He says, "...as you all know, they have an unfair advantage there. Women's behinds just fit on horses better. Soon there will be thousands of them, running us all down on horseback, like Amazons!"
The women make an argument for having an equal claim to the city, saying, "We won't let you ruin it in ways we abhor./No longer will we let you send our children to war." The leader of the women speaks about the fact that the men make laws that turn their friends to enemies, and that they will keep doing this until they are overthrown.
Analysis
When the women begin their protest, all hell breaks loose, with partying and wild primal revelry. Scene 2 begins with a magistrate noting that the women seem to be completely without shame, partying in the streets and causing chaos, in addition to refusing sexual interaction with their husbands. The betrayal that the women stage has to do not only in their abstinence, but in their irreverence and unbridled joy within that protest. In this revelry, there is the implication that, not only are the men made completely irrelevant, but that that irrelevance creates joy and celebration.
Thus, the women's liberation and political organizing is not only an act of female empowerment, but one that emasculates the men in the community. This emasculation is made explicit through the ways that the choruses interact with one another, such as when the female chorus throws water on the crotch of the leader of the male chorus. Not only do they get him wet, but they make it look as though he wet himself, a symbol of his lost virility and manliness. The women's project is to both make their lives seem wonderful while humiliating the men at the same time.
Even in direct combat, the women of the play maintain their feminine positions, fighting with comedically nontraditional weapons, weapons which flag their positions as domestic workers. When the men try and fight them in Scene 2, the women emerge with "loaves of bread, strings of garlic, eggs, and kitchen utensils." These weapons represent their positions as feminine laborers, doing housework and working with household goods. Comically enough, these weapons work in beating back the men, proving yet again the supremacy of women in this gender struggle.
As the women and the men argue about what is at issue in the war, they reach an impasse. While the women believe that the men are simply fighting over money and its acquisition, the men insist the war is being fought to maintain security and keep the citizens safe. Then, Lysistrata contends that women have to watch men mismanage political and military affairs all the time, but get relegated to domestic tasks, discouraged from speaking their mind because of their status as women. Lysistrata insists that women often know what is best, but men make poor decisions. The men, on the other hand, insist that the women have no idea what goes into making political and military decisions.
In Chorus 2, we learn a little more about the men's fears about women gaining power. In the chorus, we learn that not only are they worried about the state of their democracy, but also that they are worried that women would be more effective and powerful. The leader of the men says, "They’ll build their own navies. Or worse, they’ll form their own cavalry, and, as you all know, they have an unfair advantage there. Women’s behinds just fit on horses better. Soon there will be thousands of them, running us all down on horseback, like Amazons!" While his characterization of women's power is complicated, in that it valorizes a woman's physical attributes (her behind), as making her a superior warrior, it is still an illustration of the men's fear of inferiority or emasculation. The men fear the women's power not because they believe the women to be inferior, but because they believe them to be superior.
