{"word_count": 502, "character_count": 3020}
Strikes in British universities are still ongoing. As explained in our previous posts, two of our editors (Lisa Smith and myself) are members of the striking University and College Union, and have decided not to cross picket lines, which also include virtual ones.Today is International Women's Day. I'm certain that Twitter and other social media will be full of information on inspirational women, historical or alive. While I welcome this, I think it is important to stress that women do not need to be inspirational to matter. It is fine not to be exceptional.It is also important to stress collective women's movements, and I guess many of you will know where I am heading here: women's strikes. In fact, the 8th of March is also the day of the annual International Women's Strike. Today I shall be doubly on strike then: I will be on strike from my university job, but I will also avoid doing household chores.I shall also be re-reading Aristophanes' comedy Lysistrata (first performed in 411 BCE). Lysistrata is an Athenian woman who encourages a group of women from various Greek city states to go on a sex strike, with the aim to persuade their husbands to end the everlasting Peloponnesian War. Here is how she introduces her plan:If we sit around at homewith all our makeup on and in those gownsmade of Amorgos silk, naked underneath,with our crotches neatly plucked, our husbandswill get hard and want to screw. But then,if we stay away and won’t come near them,they’ll make peace soon enough. I’m sure of it.Aristophanes, Lysistrata 149-154 ; translation A. SommersteinThe other women are reluctant at first, but soon follow Lysistrata's advice and swear an oath to withhold sexual favours. This eventually leads to the desired outcome: peace.It is tempting to read Lysistrata as a proto-feminist play, but Aristophanes clearly was more interested in lewd jokes than in the fate of real women. It's also worth remembering that the play would have originally been performed by male actors only, adding another layer of slap-stick humour.Perhaps Aristophanes is the arch mansplainer then?  For how badly does he fail to imagine the daily, mostly invisible, labour of women. While there are historical examples of sex strikes, withholding from domestic chores and child-rearing duties is much more likely to yield results (see the examples of the 1975 Icelandic Women's strike and of the 2016 Polish Black Monday). And frankly, Lysistrata's strike sounds like a lot of emotional labour to me: all that preening to then have to push away one's lover! And anyway, how feasible would that have been in classical Athens, where there was absolutely no concept of marital rape?Much of what we do at The Recipes Project is to bring to light invisible labour, of women, of enslaved people, of marginalised people.  We never forget that mission, and we thank you for bearing with us while we are on strike!If you wish to read Aristophanes' Lysistrata, you can do so on the website Perseus (translation by Jack Lindsay).