Christine De Pisan's Accomplishments

The Renaissance, which is French for the word “rebirth” or “revival”, was the cultural bloom for Europe. Before this era, life was an everyday battle, facing warfare, poverty, and disease. Starting in around 1400 C.E and lasting until about 1700 C.E, the Renaissance brought about new philosophies, lifestyles, and ideas that changed the world forever. The Renaissance changed the way people saw the world and their place in it by focusing more on education and decreasing religion’s importance.

"Women, like men, should try to do the impossible, and when they fail, their failure should be a challenge to others.” Amelia Earhart. Women have made remarkable impacts on history. Throughout most of history, women have had fewer legal rights and career opportunities than men. Their ideal job was to be mothers or housewives. However, there were numerous amounts of women who have stood up for themselves and made a change. When in the face of discrimination, they held their heads high and persevered, showing the world that males are not always authoritative. Joan of Arc was one of these heroic females who made a major impact throughout history.

Prior to and throughout the late middle ages, women have been portrayed in literature as vile and corrupt. During this time, Christine de Pizan became a well educated woman and counteracted the previous notions of men’s slander against women. With her literary works, Pizan illustrated to her readers and women that though education they can aspire to be something greater than what is written in history. Through the use of real historical examples, Christine de Pizan’s, The Book of the City of Ladies, acts as a defense against the commonly perceived notions of women as immoral.

In her book she challenges the government of France and their ideas that women should not be exposed to the same education as men. She gives warning that women will not forever be satisfied with only domestic concerns, and she demands justice for the female race.

A critical point in European history was the Renaissance period, which took place between 1300-1700. The term Renaissance stands for ‘rebirth’, and in this context refers to the increased interest that was taken in learning from Greek and Roman classical writing. Recent exploration by historians into the Renaissance period has seen a fixation on the discussion of the role of gender during the Renaissance. A variety of historians, such as Joan Kelly and Merry E. Weisner, believe that women didn’t experience any form of a Renaissance during this period. It can be widely acknowledged that during this period society did experience a ‘rebirth’, especially in terms of the role of the men in Europe. Women, on the other hand, weren’t as fortunate.

Many people don’t know who Julia de Burgos is, little do they know that she was the most influential poet of her time. She truly shaped the idea that women are not to be restricted on how they can express their opinions and ideas. Because she faced a large amount of discrimination, Julia often expressed her views about the world she was living in through her poetry. She was not afraid of expressing her views even though women poets were restricted by society. Julia’s poetry spoke the words of the women who were not able to express their feelings.

During the medieval times, Marie de France, unlike the male writers of her time, wrote courtly stories that depicted women who were predominantly featured in the primary roles with empathy and questioned the sexist predicaments women were often subjected to. Women often times struggled to find their voice, but her stories told the perseverance and progress within those constraints. Instead, she wrote of men idealizing wealthy, powerful, independent, beautiful women. She inserts the thoughts and feelings from a woman’s perspective. In a sense, giving women the voice they strived to have heard in a male dominated time period. As Damon stated in the article “Marie de France: Psychologist of Courtly Love,” “Contemporary readers might have noted that the characters departed occasionally from the established laws of courtly conduct; none the less, as all such departures were towards reality, they were welcomed.” She opened the door for women’s self-expression and individual achievement. Marie de France’s popular adulterous love stories bring about many fascinating ethical questions.

1960 during a racial time in the United States, three African-American women changed the way women work forever. Christine Darden had a lot of accomplishments with her career but two of her accomplishments were more important to her than others. Christine Darden, Katherine Johnson, and Dorothy Vaughn were three women who joined the NASA association during the 1960’s.

During the Renaissance period, the woman didn't have many rights, which causes them to become men's property. Female author Christine de Pizan changed this preposterous idea of men's controlling women's lives when she published the book, The Book of the city of ladies. Pizan was a French Renaissance author who wrote some of the very first feminist pieces of literature. She was one of the few women that were educated during this period, which meant she could write well. Pizan book changed women confidence and made them feel as if

An unlikely candidate to dispute the unfair, misogynistic treatment of women by men and society, Christine de Pizan successfully challenged the accepted negative views that were being expressed about women by the all-male literary world of her era. Part of Christine’s uniqueness stems from the time in which she lived, the middle to late 1300’s. The lack of a positive female role model to pattern herself after made Christine a true visionary in the fight for the equal rights of women. Her original ideas and insight provided a new and more intelligent way to view females. Pizan’s work, The Book of the City of Ladies, provided women much needed guidance in how to survive without the support of a man.

Thus, we see that in a sense, Catholicism acted as a catalyst in the development of female education. Paradoxically enough though, at the same time, it limited the possible level of knowledge they could attain. The thought of the supposedly foolish, sinful female sex breaking the bonds of ignorance made many people fear the possibility of women reading “forbidden” books. Dante’s “La vita nuova”, the Petrarchan sonnets and the “Decameron” are a few examples of books that were considered lasciviously dangerous and kept off-limits (Grendler, 1989). Indeed, women could be educated, yet within a certain framework. Their level of knowledge only went up to a point, in order to make sure they grew up to be exemplary, pious, Christian housewives.

In Christine De Pisan’s Treasure of the City of Ladies, she illustrates how women are to argue for the unjust equality layers to be pulled back. She asks questions and a big part of her argument is reason—to reinvent the idea of women and how we are equal. She is creating a treasure—the city of women who wish to change the world. How do we pull these layers back? Do we argue the same way as men? Or do we do this in quite a distinct manner? Throughout Treasure of the City of Ladies, Pisan questions argument and the power women have in an argument.

The first works Christine started to write were poems. Poems make up most of her writing. Usually those poems were about Christine’s long lost love, Etienne, but that was before she realized how badly women were being treated. Remember, these were the Middle Ages; women weren’t even able to work back then. Women also (usually) had no form of education. Women were even considered their husband’s property. Christine started to criticize women’s lack of rights in her works. She believed strongly in gender equality and that women were strong, heroic, and brave. Other than gender equality and love poems, she also wrote biographies and autobiographies. This includes a biography about Charles the Fifth, which was very flattering and pleasing, and her autobiography, which talks about her thoughts on women. This was written to cease the continued debate about women. Christine was the original advocate for women’s

During the second half of the nineteenth-century, there was a rise of women becoming more active in the European world of arts. In France, among many influential women, Maria Deraismes stood out. Coming from a prosperous middle-class family, she was well educated and versed with the issues plaguing French society. She used this privilege to express herself through literary endeavours and political activism. With the help of Léon Richer, she brought a significant change to French society, and negotiated the norms of women in literature. Due to this, Maria Deraismes became a feminist icon through her written works, teachings, and advocation for the education and rights of women.

This powerful statement from Hillary Clinton underpins the injustices of female representation in the past. This silence is evident in the Bible verse, ‘Let your women keep silent in the churches,’ (I Corinthians 14: 34-37) and Virginia Woolf’s concept that “Anon … was often a woman [who could not otherwise get the respect of male counterparts].” (Virginia Woolf, 1928, A Room of One’s Own. PAGE). These are only two examples of how females have been largely disempowered by the male constraints of literature. In recent history feminists have deemed it necessary to research the lost and forgotten females and retell history from a distinctly female perspective. This issue is of significant concern to Carol Ann Duffy, the current Poet Laureate. Duffy subverts fairytales, myths and historical stories to empower women, giving them a voice and allowing their stories to be heard. This essay will argue that Carol Ann Duffy presents a feminist perspective in the poem ‘Little Red Cap’.