Dear's Intention Appears To Be To Draw Attention To The Similarities Between

Dear's intention appears to be to draw attention to the similarities between the women; both strong willed, both androgynous, both passionate. However, their contrasting feminisms are exemplified twice. In the first instance, Zenobia is weak and must trust Porphyry to restore her health. Porphyry's assertion Longinius is a good man is met with the Queen's bitter retort There are no good men. The second exchange, right at the end of the play, finds Porphyry in a weak position, as the disillusioned young woman attempts to break away from Zenobia's service,
Zenobia: There are walls you know, there are limits and constraints, on what is available to us!
Porphyry: I tear down the walls! It's what I do!
Zenobia: I build them! There's our difference
As Zenobia becomes increasingly monstrous, Porphyry's appeal grows. While the younger woman relishes her femininity, and disguises herself only to pursue her dream of studying science, Zenobia's disguise is an end in itself. She wants to be like a man because she perceives strength and nobility as uniquely masculine qualities which, as a woman, she cannot be credited with. Nor does she see such qualities in any other women. Immediately after the first battle, her fey servant Malik removes her armour and they discuss their bizarre sexualities. Malik wishes he were a woman, perceiving femininity in the manner despised by modern feminists such as Camille Paglia and Germaine Greer- that is, as a lack.
Malik: You have things done to you, you do not have to do them
Zenobia: I hate womenTheir flabby arms, their make-up, their smell of cooking oil
Malik: This is why you sent away your daughters?
Zenobia: Women are a distraction in war.
Malik: Yes, they were pretty.
Zenobia: No they weren't. They were just weak.

Dear's final assault on Zenobia comes through his undermining of her very reality- she is transformed into a pantomime dame and a grotesque cartoon superhero. Both Dear and Lochhead make strong statements about vengeance and redemption and parenthood, but these are, perhaps, almost too overt. Zenobia's story is a feminist fantasy wrought by a masculine imagination; it features appalling violence towards men and a woman who dreams to be more male- but the misfire must be taken in context. The murder of males is framed by the core hierarchy: although the Queen has many males on her hit list, her real target is herself, a female- and, by extension- all females. Her disdain for women is shocking in part simply because it is surprising and unusual, and as part of the giant transgender game that constitutes the play does feel rather unnecessary.
From one perspective both Medea and Zenobia depict a world steeped in sexism of various degrees of subtlety, from the repeated torments of the soldiers to scorn, punishment and humiliation heaped on the protagonists for failing as women, first, and later as human beings.