Today the women at the festival are going to kill me for insulting them!' This bold statement by Euripides is the absurd premise upon which the whole play depends. The women are incensed by his plays' portrayal of the female sex as mad, murderous, and sexually depraved, and they are using the festival of the Thesmophoria (an annual fertility celebration dedicated to Demeter) as an opportunity to debate a suitable choice of revenge.