The Feminist Case Against Cross-dressing

[tomoffing]

Hey Jeremey

The play structure you've adopted is confusing me right from the off, to the point where I do not know whether to critique this as a poem or not.
Here goes anyway (as a poem that is)

Is this actually a third scene or is that for an effect that I've failed to comprehend? It immediately leads me to think I've missed something. It's an uncomfortable feeling.

On whole, I'm failing to see how the play device supports your theme beyond setting the scene for your speaker.

Moving past that, I enjoy the piece very much.
It's strong and impassioned and the use of archaic language gives real presence to the character that I think would be difficult to achieve with a contemporary voice.

Some specific thoughts/observations below.

I hope you you will either expand the play device so it functions more clearly or remove. There's a great piece in this I think.

Thanks a lot,

The Feminist Case Against Cross-dressing

Scene 3

Hera enters. She wheels on a manikin draped in a baby blue baby-doll nightie.

Hera
Oh spite, be damned, witness this hatred,
This sluttery and degradation of wanton
And flighty females to dress them thus. The adjectives wanton and flighty lessen the impact of the acts of sluttery and degradation as they suggest the women are already to be held in lower esteem
Is it not enough to endure the pain of birth?
Yet before, and after,
to be dressed in scantiness revealed Can scantiness be revealed, as it's already a state of partial reveal?
And break the pleasure of a wife’s
Rehealed virginity: for pleasure. rehealed virginity is excellent. Great image/idea. I'd reconsider pleasure in the previous line. Sanctuary perhaps would be closer to the peace that has led to the rehealing process. And it starts to alleviate your overuse of that word
For shame! For double shame of giving
Twice the pleasure than a woman receives;
And all the while risking the pain
Of children and the worry of nurture.

And these children,
When pulled from the body, do all the children come from the one body? something to be done here
Are split into warriors for the state to slay
And subjects to be dressed thus, be tricked,
Be downcast and exploited of their maidenhood.
It is the curse of patriarchy:
Which word when sliced
Makes war of patriotism
And anarchy within the lives of women.
I'm reading these two lines as independent consequences. ie, makes a war of patriotism.
and separately, brings anarchy to the lives of women.
Whether that's your intent or not I would look to punctuate or adjust the line break to clarify that.

And just as the glories of the female form
Have increased allure, when draped sheer
In disguise of the impurity: so
Aphrodite’s waters,
Masks the sin of pettier pleasure
And call it love. I would as rather
My pearl were plucked,
That I might be senseless
To assault. Than I would dress thus.
This stanza is a standout for me. plucked pearl is deeply unnerving

And this curse I lay,
may it carried by the dutiful wife:
Since her life is without joy,
And her trust without reward,
For men take
The form of beasts at will
To double their double pleasure.
Let men be narrow in sensuality.
For if his licentious joys increase,
Even in the scruples weight,
The balance will o’er tip
And his need for woman will disappear.

I'm not sold on the play device as it stands, but if expanded, I think this could work excellently as an on stage soliloquy with another male character perhaps...

All opinions either way, thanks for the read and best of luck