Summary Of Christine De Pisan's Treasure Of The City Of Ladies

The fight against sexism is not a new fight. Women have been fighting for equal rights, as well as fighting for their lives, culture, and values to be just as important as men's. On August 18, 1920, women were granted the right to vote; but this was only the beginning. From then to now, the role of women in society has significantly changed due to women standing up for their rights at protests and rallies, as well as on social media. While “The Good Wife’s Guide” focused on the promotion of the traditional gender role of women and defined appropriate emotions for women, “The Revolt of ‘Mother,’” by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, represents the start of the resistance of the traditional gender role of women that we see in society today.

Throughout this course, we learned that women’s studies originated as a concern at the time that “women and men noticed the absence, misrepresentation, and trivialization of women [in addition to] the ways women were systematically excluded from many positions of power and authority” (Shaw, Lee 1). In the past, men had more privileges than women. Women have battled for centuries against certain patterns of inadequacy that all women experience. Every culture and customs has divergent female

“The Declarations of Sentiments and Resolutions” by Elizabeth Cady Stanton is an interesting and persuasive essay on women's rights and equality. The essay uses pathos, logos, and ethos to capture the reader's attention and draw them in into this argumentative piece. Each appeal deeply exercises the importance of equality for both men and women. Throughout her essay, Stanton uses pathos, logos, and ethos to draw the reader's attention and persuade them to stand up for women inequality.

Women in Renaissance Italy faced rigid societal standards to which they were supposed to conform. They lived public lives, directed almost exclusively by other people in regards to significant decisions. However, this does not mean that a rise above the oppressive nature of the Renaissance was impossible. Several exceptional women were able to challenge their given positions in a society through their education, practices, seclusion, beauty, and roles. In an examination of several positions, through the Exhortations to Women and to Others If They Please by Lucrezia Marinella and the letters of Laura Cereta, a Renaissance feminist, women can be seen as accepting of their position in society or rebelling against it. Their lives and prescriptive writings show how one can either follow the role given to them or exceed beyond it and become an exceptional woman.

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.

Anne Roiphe’s “Confessions of a Female Chauvinist Sow” first appeared in the magazine New York in 1972. In this essay Roiphe aims to convince her readers that women must put faith in the idea that they are equal to men, not superior. “Women who want equality must be prepared to give it and believe in it . . . .” Personal anecdotes, contrast, and comparison are techniques Roiphe skillfully uses to create a strong, convincing essay.

Disadvantage may indeed be an excuse; it is not, however, an intellectual position. Rather, using as a vantage point their situation as underdogs in the realm of grandeur, and outsiders in that ideology, women can reveal institutional and intellectual weaknesses in general, and at the same time that they destroy false consciousness,

The two publications that best contextualize gender are the Lowell Offering and the Godey’s Lady Book periodicals as the articles found in both magazines depict traditional gender roles for males and females. For the Lowell Offering, this is best seen in the article entitled, “Woman’s Proper Sphere”, which focuses on the thoughts associated with oppression like, “Is it ambitious wish to shine as man’s equal, in the same scenes in which he mingles” or “Does she wish for a more extensive influence, than that which emanates from a woman’s home?” Yet these progressive questions are met with answers like “How necessary, then, that she should understand these pursuits (of men), that she may truly sympathize with and encourage those, with whom she may be associated. In this way…her influence must and

Feminism is a prominent controversy in present times and is relevant through literary works. In the article, “Throwing like a Girl,” James Fallows analyzes that saying exactly for what it means in our society, and more importantly if there’s any truth to the stereotype. In the article, “Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History,” Laurel Thatcher Ulrich shows how feminist historians, by challenging traditional accounts of both men's and women's histories, have prompted more vibrant accounts of the past. While Fallows analyzes the styles of throwing to identify a possible theory of the stereotypical saying, “throwing like a girl,” Ulrich discusses and encourages women to be strong and accomplish their goals, by using her phrase “well behaved women seldom make history.”

We have all heard the saying, “it’s a man’s world”. It appears that our world is governed according to a man’s perspective and thoughts as to how the world should be run, and women gracefully bow down to this perspective and internalize those male supremacist notions of patriarchal dominance. Even with this seemingly innate belief that men have, it is still apparent at times that there is another view that is often glossed over and ignored in the pursuit of extreme power and superiority. In Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones and Julia Alvarez’s In the Time of Butterflies, we are able to dissect society through the eyes of women who have had

The Book of the City of Ladies During the renaissance many different views of leadership surfaced. Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies, Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince, and William Shakespeare’s Richard III each present distinct views of what would make a good leader during the renaissance period. Shakespeare and Christine de Pizan’s views align most closely with Plato’s.

Marie de France lived in a time when social graces were paramount to a good reputation, lordships and to securing good marriages. A woman was considered less valuable if she lost her virginity; a wife was subjected to her feudal lord, father, brother or son after her husband’s death. According to Angela Sandison’s article “The Role of Women in the Middle Ages”, this was because in the Middle Ages the Church and the aristocracy controlled public opinion and the legal system. These authorities of the times believed a woman’s place was in a submissive role to a man. In The Lay of the Nightingale, we will see how this social and religious hierarchy will impact the behaviors of the three people involved.

In the fifteenth century, Christine de Pisan dreamt of building an ideal city for eminent and virtuous women, and with the help of her three "muses," the sisters Reason, Rectitude, and Justice, she reflected on the many women in history and mythology who might live together in this Cité des Dames. Almost exactly four centuries later, the American sculptor and feminist Harriet Hosmer envisioned a beautiful temple dedicated to the achievements of women. Now such a grand idea has been realized.

Her most famous work is The Book of the City of Ladies. Written in the vernacular, Christine writes of all the injustices women face in society and how a woman could strike back. The book is as well, a formal and lengthy response of Jean de Meun’s Romance of the Rose, by defending women and providing a wide range of strong, famous women in history to defend her argument of a strong, independent woman. In The Book of the City of Ladies, Christine writes that “...others have said and continue to say and write such awful, damning things about women and their ways. I was at a loss...who all seem to speak with one voice and are unanimous in their view that female nature is wholly given up to vice.” Criticism and sexism against women has Christine at a “loss” for words. She expresses that the common belief of women being a “vice” to the world and man, is absolutely absurd. She begins her book with this passage, and explains her goal for her contemporary woman and women for the future. “Our aim is to help you get rid of those misconceptions which have clouded your mind and made you reject what you know and believe in fact to be the truth just because so many other people have come out with the opposite opinion.” Christine wishes to make sure that whatever falsehood and deception any one person had ever said to the reader or any brainwashed fabrication into thinking their

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.