In 1880, three Kansas towns—Osake, Jones City, and Mandaroon—wage a dusty, stubborn battle to decide which will host the county seat, with a single safe filled with important documents standing as the prize that could tilt political power in any direction. The tension among the men is mirrored at home, where the women watch time drift by as husbands drift in and out of peril and labor. The drama centers on Birdie Snyder, Mamie Van Doren, a young wife whose voice grows louder as the crisis deepens, and on Liza McClure, Jeanne Crain, the sheriff’s daughter whom Matt Davis, George Nader, hopes to marry.
The trio of rivals falls into a pattern: the men race off to claim the safe, then return exhausted, wary that their bid for the county seat is as fragile as the documents they guard. Matt Davis courts Liza, but Sheriff McClure remains unsure whether the union is about romance or the town’s fate. Osake’s faction of men secures the prize and even starts building a courthouse, a concrete sign of their lead—until the safe is stolen and the couple’s hopes are knocked off balance. Liza grows furious at Matt’s absence just as the danger shifts, and the chase resumes with a new urgency: a posse forms, and the other towns join the effort.
In a bold nod to Aristophanes, Lysistrata, the women decide to act. Led by Liza, they are joined by Birdie Snyder, [Mamie Van Doren], and Cassie Slater, Edna Skinner, among others, as they retreat to a fortified stronghold and literally lock the men out. The strike is peaceful in tone but powerful in intention: the women challenge the men to prove their worth if they want back into the life they’ve interrupted. The men, for their part, must demonstrate their seriousness and adaptability to win back the trust of their communities.
Yet the crisis persists. The safe is captured once more by Osake, only this time it sinks in the river, leaving everyone to wonder if the tug-of-war over power will ever reach a clear ending. The women briefly presume victory, but the men insist on waiting for the waters to fall so they can retrieve their prize again—only to discover the river’s retreat isn’t straightforward. With the fort still controlled by the women, Job McClure, [Bert Lahr], steps forward to lift morale and rally the men with a performance of a song that has become a symbol of their stubborn resilience: the title ballad "The Second Greatest Sex".
As the water level recedes, the men race back to the sunken site, only to find another town already there with the prize in hand. A full-scale confrontation erupts as fists fly and alliances shift among the three towns. In the chaos, the wagon carrying the safe loses its grip and tumbles into a pool of quicksand, swallowing both metal and mystery alike. The fight dissolves into a broader scramble for control, and the men return home to a startling discovery: the women of Mandaroon and Jones City have vanished again, only to reveal that they’ve all holed up in the same fortified position.
What follows is a hard-won reconciliation. The women force the men to call a truce and to choose a completely new location for the county seat, signaling a reset of the long-standing feud. In the end, the conflict resolves not through brute force or single-handed wins, but through a coalition of voices from every town, led by the women who held their ground and refused to bow to pressure. The story remains a portrait of stubborn rivals learning to share power, with the fort as a symbol of their stand and a reminder that the heart of a community often beats strongest when both sides listen to one another.
