Apologies for another belated... ♀ Feminist Friday ♀ Chri..

Apologies for another belated... ♀ Feminist Friday ♀ Christine de Pizan Christine de Pisan (Christine de Pizan) was a medieval writer and historiographer who advocated for women’s equality. Her works, considered to be some of the earliest feminist writings, include poetry, novels, biography, and autobiography, as well as literary, political, and religious commentary. De Pisan became the first woman in France, and possibly Europe, to earn a living solely by writing. De Pisan was raised at court in Paris with her father, Thomas de Pisan, the astrologer and secretary to King Charles V of France. Although her educational upbringing is unclear, through her father’s court appointment, she did have access to a variety of exceptional libraries. In 1380, de Pisan married Etienne du Castel, a nobleman from Picardy. He was an unusual husband for the time in that he supported her educational and writing endeavors. When he died in 1390, de Pisan was only in her early twenties. After receiving attention from patrons in the court for her poetry and love ballads dedicated to her husband, she decided that rather than remarry she would support her three children and newly widowed mother through her writing. While she was still establishing herself as a writer, de Pisan also transcribed and illustrated other authors’ works. Her own writing, in its various forms, discusses many feminist topics, including the source of women’s oppression, the lack of education for women, different societal behaviors, combating a misogynistic society, women’s rights and accomplishments, and visions of a more equal world. De Pisan’s work, though critical of the prevailing patriarchy, was well received, as it was also based in Christian virtue and morality. Her writing was especially strong in rhetorical strategies that have since been extensively studied by scholars. Her two most famous works are the books Le Dit de la Rose (The Tale of the Rose), 1402, and Le Tresor de la Cité des Dames (The Book of the City of Ladies), 1405. Le Dit de la Rose was a direct attack on Jean de Meun’s extremely popular Romance of the Rose, a work about courtly love that characterized women as seducers, which de Pisan claimed was misogynistic, vulgar, immoral, and slanderous to women. She later published Letters on the Debate of the Rose as a follow-up to the controversial debate. In Le Tresor de la Cité des Dames, de Pisan has a discussion with three “ladies,” introduced as Reason, Rectitude, and Justice, about the oppression of women and the misogynistic subject matter and language that contemporary male writers used. Under the author’s guidance, the women form their own city, where only women of virtue reside. In the book, she writes, “Moreover, it is just as applicable to ladies, maidens, and other women to have worldly prudence in regulating their lives well, each according to her estate, and to love honour and the blessings of a good reputation” (Lawson, trans., The Treasure of the City of Ladies, 110). Although de Pisan’s work was primarily written for and about the upper classes (the majority of lower class women were illiterate), her writing was instrumental in introducing the concept of equality and justice for women in medieval France. De Pisan lived the majority of her life in relative comfort, and in 1418, she entered a convent in Poissy (northwest of Paris), where she continued to produce work, including her last poem Le Ditie de Jeanne d’Arc (Song in Honor of Joan of Arc), 1429.