Editing Matriarchy (section)

===Ancient theatre===
* As criticism in 390 BC, [[Aristophanes]] wrote a play, ''[[Ecclesiazusae]]'', about women gaining legislative power and governing [[Athens]], Greece, on a limited principle of equality. In the play, according to Mansfield, Praxagora, a character, argues that women should rule because they are superior to men, not equal, and yet she declines to assert publicly her right to rule, although elected and although acting in office.<ref name="Manliness-p73-74-n">{{harvp|Mansfield|2006|loc=pp. 73–74 & n. 37}}, citing Strauss, Leo, ''Socrates and Aristophanes'' (N.Y.: Basic Books, 1966), ch. 9, and Saxonhouse, Arlene W., ''Fear of Diversity'' (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), ch. 1.</ref> The play, Mansfield wrote, also suggests that women would rule by not allowing politics, in order to prevent disappointment, and that affirmative action would be applied to heterosexual relationships.<ref name="Manliness-p73-74-n"/> In the play, as Mansfield described it, written when Athens was a male-only democracy where women could not vote or rule, women were presented as unassertive and unrealistic, and thus not qualified to govern.<ref name="Manliness-p73-74-n"/> The play, according to Sarah Ruden, was a fable on the theme that women should stay home.<ref>{{harvp|Ruden|2010|p=79}}</ref>