LYSISTRATA: Good day, Lampito, dear friend from Lacedaemon! How well and handsome you look! what a rosy complexion! and how strong you seem; why, you could strangle a bull surely!
LAMPITO: Yes, indeed I really think I could. 'Tis because I do gymnastics and practice the 'kick dance.
LYSISTRATA: And what superb bosoms!
LAMPITO: La! You are feeling me as if I were a beast for sacrifice.
Lysistrata, Act I, Scene I
Lysistrata reminds us how to get a good start in terms of solidarity: a warm greeting that affirms strength and beauty (and also attracts the audience) but doesn't take offense at a smart retort. On this subject of solidarity --and attention, now that we caught yours-- various news agencies have been reporting on the week-long Kenyan women's political protest that is a "sex strike," organized by women's NGOs such as Women's Development Organisation. A male Kenyan legislator is reported to be upset. Moving on... International news media coverage of similar protests in the recent past highlights diverse agents and causes. Headlines have featured Cameroonian women angered by crop destruction (2003), Pereiran (Colombian) wives and girlfriends of "gang members" appalled by violence (2006), and Naples women opposed to men using dangerous fireworks (2008). Radical, longer-term activisms, such as the one based upon the booklet Love Your Enemy?, have taken their own place in history and the present. The anti-misogyny that roots such a (sub-)movement brings to mind the great risk some women assume to participate in attention-getting abstinence. Looking ahead, it will be interesting to see how changes in economic status and the general social construction of reality are reflected in the motivation, composition, strategy and achievement of these (in)actions that can be ever so diplomatic.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
What diplomats!
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2 comments:
So many gems in the article about the upset Kenyan legislator...
"[I]t is un-African..."
"[W]ho is going to supervise and see that the boycott is implemented?"
"[T]he idea of talking about the boycott of sex and so on and so forth...is just unheard of and... it can't work."
PS Try reading/analyzing Lysistrata in a class where the professor uses the term "banging" in place of "having sex."
For sure, nice highlights.
In general I can understand a concern for modesty in terms of conversation with very young children, but crisis conditions created by political infighting, corruption, systemic violence against women, etc. seem to be relatively obscene and have longer-term, severe effects.
PS I think that professor or teacher strengthens the case for strikes?
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