J. M. Synge was neither the first nor the last modern Irish playwright to run into gender trouble. His treatment of gender and sexuality is, however, credited with starting the most notorious theatrical controversy in the riot-studded history of Irish theatre. Theories purporting to explain why Irish nationalists responded so violently to the premiere of Synge's The Playboy of the Western World in 1907 are as numerous as the stars in the sky; but Synge's contemporaries made it clear that they were protesting, among other things, his representation of Irish women. In particular, they were appalled by the spectacle of Irish women expressing and acting on their own sexual desires - or, as Synge's nemesis Arthur Griffith put it, 'contending in their lusts for the possession of a man who has appealed to their depraved instincts by murdering, as they believe, his father'. But The Playboy's unusual romance was by no means Synge's only transgression. In fact, all of Synge's plays critique, indict, or undermine the premises upon which nationalist constructions of 'Irish womanhood' were built. This essay will investigate what was at stake in the nationalist notion of 'Irish womanhood', will show how Synge's dramatic work dismantles that notion, and will suggest some of the forces that shaped Synge's own very different understanding of gender, sexuality and femininity. To understand why Synge's women caused so much trouble, we must consider them as the product of Synge's approach to three things that always inform constructions of gender: the body, sexuality and reproduction.