Euripides! Master! How well you knew women!

In this paper I will demonstrate why I believe, contrary to widespread opinion and possible even his own, that Aristophanes, not Euripides, was, of the four major dramatists fo Athens' Golden Age, the one who least respected women. Having become aware at the ouset of this leterrature course of the position of women in the otherwise enlightened thought of Greece in the Fifth Century B.C., I kept my eyes open during our reading for …

…perceived male superiority. At one point, when the women respond to the taunts and threats of the men with taunts and threats of their own, the male chorus calls out, "Euripides! Master! How well you knew women!" I believe Euripides did understand a great deal more about women than was common in his time. I believe Aristophanes thought he knew women, and I don't think he ever even realized the serious injustice Lysistrata does them.