Protest Thingy

I've always been against the use of real animal fur for coats, hats, etc, but I've never actually had an opportunity to do anything about it. I used this assignment as an opportunity to voice my opinion on this subject and hopefully change some people's minds on the idea of using real animal fur for clothing. So I decided to hand out fliers that I made dealing with animal fur clothing outside of A.J. Ugent Fur.
However, I felt like people wouldn't be very interested in another flier about fur since I'm sure everyone has seen fliers or pamplets about it before. So I decided to make it more specific so it would hopefully catch some people's attention. My fliers were about Karakul lamb fur. The truly sad thing about this is that since lambs are born with glossy, tightly curled fur that begins to unravel after a few days, those who are in the business of making Karakul lamb coats have to slaughter lambs right after they are born. Also, since they're so small, it takes several lambs to be killed in order to make one coat.
I think that by using a specific kind of fur, I sparked more people's interest, because more people than I thought asked me about my fliers. Most people, I think, didn't know what Karakul lamb fur was, which was why it got their attention, which I might not have gotten if I had just handed out more fliers just about fur in general. However, there were still a lot of people who I know just took a flier to be polite and probably threw it away as soon as they got home. But I definitely expected that. I also expected it when people just walked past me or declined taking a flier, and I was a little disappointed in them. However, I felt really encouraged and almost empowered when I met a lot of people who were actually interested in my fliers or what I had to say.
So I think that I may have actually changed some people's opinions on buying fur clothing, or confirmed their beliefs against it. At least, I hope that I caused people to think about the consequences of buying fur clothing and hopefully will encourage them never to do it.

Lysistrata Post #10

So I was extremely happy that this play did not end with a suicide. When we first started reading this book, I thought it would be another story about women being repressed and not listened to, but I was pleasantly surprised. I was interested to find that the women in this play had an important role in the decisions made concerning the war. At first they didn't, since the men refused to listen to the women, but after the women asserted their power through the protest, they realized that they did have a voice. It was a refreshing change, since in the other two books the women tried to do this and gain control of their life- and in the end they are unable to and end up killing themselves. In Lysistrata, however, the women actually have a power over the men, and in the end everyone ends up getting what they want. Perhaps that shows something about how everything works out better for everyone if people work together instead of dividing different roles for specific people. If everyone's opinion gets heard, then it is easier to make everyone happy rather than just having one group of people be in complete control (the men in the other books).

Lysistrata Post #9

So how is Lysistrata similar to Bernarda and Hedda, if at all? I think that she is similar to Bernarda in that she is in control of the women around her, although Bernarda's daughters were more resentful of her tyranny than the other women were of Lysistrata. I mean, they didn't want to do the protest, but they knew that it was necessary in order to end the war. I don't think that Lysistrata is similar to Hedda in many ways, but they both do understand how to manipulate people. Hedda knew how to manipulate Lovborg just as Lysistrata knew how to get want she wanted out of the men, and also how to convince the other women to go along with protest. However, Hedda wanted to control people for very different reasons- she wanted to do it to get more control over her own life, whereas Lysistrata used her mamipulating skills in order to end a war and create peace. So overall, the character of Lysistrata was a much more honest and likeable character in my opinion.

Lysistrata Post #8

My question is: do the men truly love their wives or is it all just about sex? At first, I thought it was all about sex for them since they refused to end the war for their wives' sakes. . . until they proposed the abstinance strike. THEN suddenly they were willing to end the war. But then I reread the scene with Myrrhine and Kinesias, when Kinesias says, "She left our home, and happiness went with her" (81). That proved to me that he did truly love her, because he didn't just say that he wanted to sleep with her, he said that his home was truly not the same without her, and he also is extremely happy to hear her say that she loves him. Therefore, I think that the men did love their wives, and also agreed to have peace to make them happy, not just to end their abstinance.

Lysistrata Post #7

Okay, is it just me or is it hypocritical that two of the themes of this book are "Make love, not war" and "The WAR of the sexes"? Hmm. I noticed that particularly in the scene where the women and the men are brandishing chamber pots and threatening (and succeeding) to hit each other. Yeah, I understand that the men and women weren't going to truly hurt one another, like they were in the actual war between the Athenians and the Spartans, but still. I thought it was pretty hypocritical that the women decided to help create peace by using violence. (??) I kind of thought that by abstaining they were going to show that wars could be resolved without using any violence, but that kind of went out the window when they start breaking lamps over peoples' heads.

Lysistrata Post #6

In terms of spectacle, I think that it is interesting that most of the play takes place in the Akropolis, which can be seen as a symbol of power for the women. Since the women hold the Akropolis, it indicates that they also hold a position of power over the men. Therefore, I think that the set helps indictate the theme of the power of women, not only because they are able to make their men miserable without them, but because they are able to take control of the Akropolis. Perhaps that's why the men were so upset when they found out that the women were in power of the Akropolis, since they realized what this meant. They might have also seen it as a sign of the women taking control, which was not what they wanted.

Lysistrata Post #5

Dynamic characters? I don't think so. Did ANY character in Lysistrata change or improve? I didn't find any evidence of that. I figured that in the end, the men would realize that there was no point in fighting the war and that they would want peace for the same reason the women did- everyone was safe and happy. But then I actually got to the end and the men seemed to only want to resolve the war to get back with their wives- they seemed to have no sense of WHY they were ending the war other than to sleep with their wives. They obviously didn't care about peace or the well-being of anyone, which makes me wonder- what did they learn? Nothing really. So I just can't say that any of the men changed, or the women for that matter. Lysistrata remains strong the whole book (but doesn't really progress) and all the other women are reluctant to join in, and they still are all the way throughout the play (remember the "pregnant" woman with her copper baby?). I guess the only one I would say improved at all would be Myrrhine, since she was one of the hesitant ones at the beginning, but later was strong enough to deny her husband when she could have broken the oath without anyone knowing.

Lysistrata Post #4

I thought that it was almost hypocritical for Aristophanes to portray the Spartans the way he did using language. I mean, the whole book is centered around getting peace and ending the fighting and the war, and yet whenever the Spartans are around, they are made to seem inferior and stupid even. The dialect that Aristophanes uses for the Spartans is obviously used to make them seem like dumb hicks, which I thought was completely unnecissary and was in no way contributing to what was happening in the play. Therefore, I thought that the only reason the Aristophanes had the Spartans talking like that was to point out that they were not as intelligent or educated as the Athenians, which completely goes against the whole moral of the story, which is to end wars and create peace. What's the deal?

Lysistrata Post #3

The most interesting metaphor, I thought, was "Peace". I just found it interesting that Lysistrata would decide to use another woman's body in order to negotiate a peace arrangement. I mean, first of all, it kind of dehumanizes women because Lysistrata was encouraging the men to divide the woman up like a piece of meat. And secondly, I got the feeling that Lysistrata used "Peace" as a prop to keep the men in line- the men wouldn't argue with each other with that kind of motivation. That, however, seemed to dehumanize the men as well, making them look like animalistic fools who could barely form a complete sentence with Peace there. I think that Peace was there to represent what the men would be getting if they agreed to have peace among each other, but I think that everyone came out of the negotiations with less respect for each other than they went in with. But I guess all that matters is that the issue was resolved and everyone got what they wanted. For now.

Lysistrata Post #2

Anyone else annoyed with the men in this play? Okay, I got the idea that this war has been going on for a really long time- therefore it must be really important to these men, right? Yeah. It was SO IMPORTANT that they even went a whole day without having sex! Wow! That's impressive. That just showed me that these men weren't even fighting for a real reason. I mean, how important could this war have been if they were willing to resolve it in a day? If it was that easy, why were they even fighting it in the first place? It just seemed to me like if these men didn't have something to fight over or to fight against, then they weren't really happy. That makes me think that this "peace" is going to be shortlived.

Lysistrata Post #1

So I have to say- I was kind of disappointed with this play. It kind of reminded me of that show "Seinfeld" in that a lot of random stuff happened that's supposed to be funny, but in the end you realize that you didn't get anything out of it. I mean, I understand what happened in the book, and there was kind of a moral (???) but I don't think that at any point in the play I said- "Hey, that's a really good point" or "Wow, that's an interesting idea". I was really hoping that there would be a more controversial or political issue, but I didn't really find one. No true revelations were present at the end of the book, and I don't think anything was really resolved. Women held out on their husbands until they did what they wanted. Not a real exciting ending. In fact, I think there was a "Seinfeld" episode on it.