desertvixen | Reading Post #31: The City of Ladies

The City of Ladies was written by Christine de Pizan in 1405. See Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_de_Pizan

For her time, she seems pretty feminist. Obviously, considering her time, this isn't saying much by our lights. But by hers, it seems like quite a bit. She believed that men and women were made differently for a reason, and that women's strength was in their virtue.

The book is set up as a sort of dialogue between herself and three outside characters - Ladies Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. It plays to morality, obviously, a sort of instructional thing but fun to read. There's also the standard boilerplate at the end of the book about how virtuous the royal ladies and noble ladies of her France were.

However, some things resonated. My copy is the Penguin Books: Great Ideas version, translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant, published 1999.

p.86-7: "Their argument goes like this. First, they assume all women are by nature weak. Then, having accused women of weakness, they presumably think themselves to be constant, or at least that women are not as constant as they are. Yet it's undeniable that they expect far greater constancy from women than they themselves can muster. Though they consider themselves to be so strong, and to be made of such noble stuff, they're unable to stop themselves from falling prey to some awful vices and failings. Nor is this by any means always out of ignorance. Indeed, it's often down to deliberate bad intentions, because they're well aware that they're committing a sin. But then they excuse themselves, saying that to err is to be human. However, should a woman fall into error, usually thanks to a man's incessant scheming, lo and behold, they declare this to be due to women's innate weakness and inconstancy."

I don't agree with the "incessant scheming" part - some men do, but not all - but the rest of the bold text seems pretty true,

p. 95: "You can't define something as being for the common good of a city, country, or other community of people, if it doesn't contribute to the universal good of all. Women as well as men must derive equal benefit from it."

There's also a section on the straw woman (yes, she is apparently that old) - the ever popular "One woman has wronged me, so I may paint you all with the same brush, but how dare you act as if it's okay to do the same to men". Christine is as biting as any modern author on the subject.

Worth the read, especially if you like women and history.

DV