Because in my first game of the semester, the students in both classes had ended with about fifteen minutes left in our hour and fifteen minute block, for this class I had prepared some in class writing in case the class went short again.
Happily, this was unnecessary.
In both classes, Herodion was the president of the Assembly. In both classes, Herodion used this power to add some time to the agenda on the topic of women. The different results were quite interesting, and are indicative of the complex gender dynamics when recreating the past through competitive role-playing.
In terms of logistics, because the number of votes per character changes so often in the game, I decided to help the presidents and heralds with this form.
8AM: The Socratics and the Solonian aristocrats strike enough of an alliance with Lithicles and Gorgias that they are able to restrict the Assembly to property owners. In their speeches, the Pericleans had offered some compromises to the Thrasybuleans, but these two group fail to actually work together. With the newly smaller electorate, Gorgias proposes state funding for the education of voters. This fails. Then Herodion opens the floor to the discussion on women. The speech was a bit short, but Herodion had obviously read the room correctly: the proposal to expand the electorate to include citizen women who own property passes! At first assurances were made that a) there were such women and b) there were not many of them.
What was fascinating about this vote was that this class is split between men and women about 60/40, the result of there being a preponderance of engineering students because this General Education class fits into the demanding engineering schedule.
9:30: The Socratics and Solonian aristocrats similarly strike enough of an alliance to restrict the size of the electorate. Interestingly, because of a poorly worded law, which does not indicate that one must be an Athenian in order to vote, but instead simply a “property owner”, the metic Lysias wins the franchise! This Herodion aims lower, teaming up with Gorgias to get state support for the education of women. This proposal fails. They recoup some dignity by getting the Assembly to pass a resolution offering moral support for anyone who pursues education.
In this class, the ration between men and women is close to 40/60. My current thesis is that the class with more women was more comfortable accurately reenacting the patriarchal expectations and biases of Assemblymen than a class with men.
Happily, this was unnecessary.
In both classes, Herodion was the president of the Assembly. In both classes, Herodion used this power to add some time to the agenda on the topic of women. The different results were quite interesting, and are indicative of the complex gender dynamics when recreating the past through competitive role-playing.
In terms of logistics, because the number of votes per character changes so often in the game, I decided to help the presidents and heralds with this form.
8AM: The Socratics and the Solonian aristocrats strike enough of an alliance with Lithicles and Gorgias that they are able to restrict the Assembly to property owners. In their speeches, the Pericleans had offered some compromises to the Thrasybuleans, but these two group fail to actually work together. With the newly smaller electorate, Gorgias proposes state funding for the education of voters. This fails. Then Herodion opens the floor to the discussion on women. The speech was a bit short, but Herodion had obviously read the room correctly: the proposal to expand the electorate to include citizen women who own property passes! At first assurances were made that a) there were such women and b) there were not many of them.
What was fascinating about this vote was that this class is split between men and women about 60/40, the result of there being a preponderance of engineering students because this General Education class fits into the demanding engineering schedule.
9:30: The Socratics and Solonian aristocrats similarly strike enough of an alliance to restrict the size of the electorate. Interestingly, because of a poorly worded law, which does not indicate that one must be an Athenian in order to vote, but instead simply a “property owner”, the metic Lysias wins the franchise! This Herodion aims lower, teaming up with Gorgias to get state support for the education of women. This proposal fails. They recoup some dignity by getting the Assembly to pass a resolution offering moral support for anyone who pursues education.
In this class, the ration between men and women is close to 40/60. My current thesis is that the class with more women was more comfortable accurately reenacting the patriarchal expectations and biases of Assemblymen than a class with men.