An Immodest Proposal to End the Pandemic: The Lysistrata Strategy
“If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.”
By Jim Miller and Kelly Mayhew
Last week, President Biden announced that we had reached an important milestone in the effort to end the COVID-19 pandemic, with 200 million shots delivered into the arms of Americans. Now vaccines are available to every person over 16, and there is real light at the end of the tunnel with the only obstacle being vaccine hesitancy.
On one level, this is flabbergasting given all the illness, death, and economic and social pain that Americans have endured over the last year. Of course, many people flooded the vaccination centers at first, but now, as a chorus of media voices have noted in recent days, the hard part begins. And while there are a number of complicating factors in the effort to achieve herd immunity, one key problem stands out: men.
As the Los Angeles Times reported in recent weeks:
Indeed, throughout the pandemic, multiple surveys have found that women take more precautions to stave off coronavirus infections, somewhat ironic given that men have a higher chance of dying from the virus if they contract it. A Gallup poll last year found that women were more likely than men to wear masks, social distance and avoid large crowds.
The survey showed that political leanings accounted for some of that difference, as men were more likely to identify as Republican and Republicans less likely to follow coronavirus precautions. But even within each political party, women were more worried about the virus and followed more safety recommendations.
Perhaps that same tendency toward caution extends to the COVID-19 vaccine. A viral tweet from a reporter in North Carolina showed that many vaccinated people listed the same reason for getting their shots: Their wives made them.
With this in mind, we want to offer up a model, if you will, of how to bring recalcitrant men into line so they’ll get their jabs: we call it the Lysistrata Strategy. Lysistrata is an Ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, written in 411 BCE. In it, the title character, a woman of cunning, wit, and strength, manages to corral women from around the Greek Isles to help end the interminable Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.
Lysistrata has a simple proposition: she convinces her lusty band of women to withhold conjugal activities to end the war. “We must renounce—sex.”
For good measure, Lysistrata also has a troop of old women go and secure the Acropolis (treasury), to starve the war of resources. Much lamenting ensues as husbands sporting enormous erections entreat their wives for relief, and Lysistrata too must keep her troops from sneaking off to satisfy their own carnal urges.
In the end, the women grab the men by whatever appendage they can and force a peace treaty between Athenians and Spartans with an orgy in the Acropolis as the payoff.
While many others have suggested alternative strategies like appealing to intractable men through clergy, their doctors, sports figures, or conservative politicians, we feel the Lysistrata Strategy would have the most profound and immediate impact. Sadly, it’s become abundantly clear that our social and political discourse has sunk to such a sad level that a large contingent of the population, disproportionately male, is beyond reason and other high-minded appeals.
Thus, we feel that we need to return to an old verity frequently attributed to LBJ in the Vietnam era but that others trace back to President Theodore Roosevelt, “If you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow.” We offer this, in the service of public health and the greater good of American democracy.
Now is the time for desperate measures. So, good partners, women, and wives of America, here’s our immodest proposal: no fornication without vaccination!