I’ve finally got around to reading The Book of the City of Ladies by Christine de Pizan, which has been on my “must” list for some time. She had a very clear eye, and it’s clear that lots about gender relations hasn’t changed…
Those who criticize the female sex because they are inherently sinful are men who have wasted their youth on dissolute behaviour… they look back with nostalgia on the appalling way they used to carry on when they were younger. Now that old age has finally caught up with them … they are full of regret when they see that, for them, the ‘good old days’ are over and they can merely watch as younger men take over…
Those men who have slandered the opposite sex out of envy have usually known women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are. Out of bitterness and spite, envious men such as these are driven to attack all women…(p18-19)
Christine is also surprisingly democratic; talking about women’s lack of knowledge. “As for this idea that … women’s inelligence is inferior to that of men simply because we see that those around us generally know less than men do, let’s take the example of male peasants living in remote countryside or high mountains. You could give me plenty of names of places where the men are so backward that they seem no better than beasts. Yet there’s nbo doubt that Nature made them as perfect in mind and body as the cleverest and most learned men to be found in towns and cities.” (p.58)
From the Penguin Classic, translated by Rosalind Brown-Grant 1999. (Although the translation is a little informal for my taste)
About