[2] The play invents a scenario where the women of Athens assume control of the government and institute reforms that ban private wealth and enforce sexual equity for the old and unattractive.

One woman brings a basket full of yarn in order to get some work done as the assembly fills up, to which Praxagora chastises her for this decision as it will ruin their cover.

Praxagora decides that she alone is capable of speaking to the assembly and practises a speech decrying the corrupt leaders of the city as selfish and unpatriotic through their acts of war and personal enrichment through public funds.

Praxagora impresses the women with her rhetorical skills, and explains that it was learned from listening to orators while living with her husband on the Pnyx, where the Athenian assembly was held.

They discuss how they plan to handle opposition and practice how to raise their hands to vote before leaving to attend the assembly by dawn in order to receive pay and a complimentary meal.

Chremes, returning from the assembly, comes upon Blepyrus and his neighbor and explains that he was not paid because of the unprecedented turn-out of pale faced shoe-makers (referring to the women in disguise).

Believing she was a "good-looking young man," Chremes explains how he argued women were better at keeping secrets, returning borrowed items without cheating, that they don’t sue or inform on people or try to overthrow the democracy, all points that Blepyrus agreed upon.

In the next scene, Blepyrus' neighbor is laying his household objects out in front of his house to be contributed to the common fund as the Selfish Man enters.

The Selfish Man acts entitled to the feast, but the neighbor points out his reluctance to donate possessions to the common fund disqualifies him from communal events.

After the neighbor leaves to donate his possessions, the selfish man explains that he intends to keep his belongings and enjoy the free dinner at the same time.

They exchange vulgar insults and go inside their homes as Epigenes enters the scene, lamenting the new laws governing sex.

The dramatis personae based on Jeffrey Henderson's translation are:[4] Silent Characters In the early 4th century BC, Athens was reeling from the Peloponnesian War and remained in the midst of continuing battles with Sparta.

Athens and its allies, Thebes, Corinth and Argos experienced over two years struggling to rid themselves of the Spartans with many successes and failures along the way.

The play lacks a parabasis and has an undeveloped agon, the choral songs between episodes are not included in the script, and the lacuna is often indicated by the note choru ("place for a chorus"), which is more characteristic of Menander and New Comedy.

(1169–74) Jeffrey Henderson translated the word as a stew of "limpets and saltfish and sharksteak and dogfish and mullets and oddfish with savory pickle sauce and thrushes with blackbirds and various pigeons and roosters and pan-roasted wagtails and larks and nice chunks of hare marinated in mulled wine and all of it drizzled with honey and silphium and vinegar, oil and spices galore.