Herstory - Christine de Pizan's Book of the City of Ladies & Treasure of the City of Ladies

   I've been researching Christine de Pizan's life and works, especially focusing on her feminism and defense of women, for a couple of feminist projects: First was a Spanish representation initiative on Twitter, #VisibilizaciónEnLaLiteratura ("Visibilization of women in literature"), which took place last 29th of December - Here's the link to the Twitter thread (in Spanish).

And second was a talk about Christine (made a presentation based on my Twitter thread) for a Spanish feminist group (Dando Voz al Silencio) which organized a couple of days with talks, presentations and exhibitions visibilizing women writers and artists.

I will be posting a translated version of my Twitter thread (in Blogger post version), as well as the presentation from the talk.

Today's post is the review on The Book of the City of Ladies (and its sequel, The Book of the Treasure of Ladies/The Book of Three Virtues) which I posted on Goodreads.

 I also reference the two books I also studied in order to prepare the Twitter thread and presentation for the talk: Charity Cannon Willard's biography (Christine de Pizan: Her Life and Works) and Rosalind Brown-Grant's study about Christine's pro-women work (Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women. Reading Beyond Gender) (she is also the translator of my edition of the City). You can find all of them in my Christine de Pizan Goodreads shelf.

So here's the review: (on Goodreads I gave the City 4.5-5/5; 3-3.5/5 for the Three Virtues)

   This book (The Book of the City of Ladies) has quite a lot of points which are very interesting and pretty progressive (bearing her Medieval period in mind!) from a feminist point of view (pro-woman representation, criticism of patriarchal double standards, gender roles, and the behaviour of misogynistic entitled men against women).   
   Some parts, however, still include quite a lot of problematic content (internalized misogyny, especially regarding modesty mindsets; promotion of patriarchal gender roles - albeit in order to protect women from a cruel patriarchal society; and a lot of religious content). 
   Giving it 4.5/5 in spite of this problematic content because I think her pro-woman anti-misogyny feminist ideas - sometimes remarkably close to modern feminism, especially her direct criticism of men's misogyny and double standards - are remarkable and amazing for the society of the 14th-15th Century, and Christine also deserves recognition as the first professional female writer in Europe, and also as the first who tackled the defense of women and feminist themes in her writing in a direct way - an important turning point in the history of feminism.

    
The first part is especially interesting in its female representation and its description of proactive, 'non-traditional' roles (it tackles ruling queens, warriors, erudites and inventors); and even if Christine didn't actually promote that the women of her time veer away from the established repressive gender roles society imposed upon them, it's still refreshing representation at the time. It's peppered with some biological determinism and religious problematic sections, but overall it's quite good in its pro-woman content.   

 

Regarding other pro-woman details, this book includes quite a lot of female bonding (women supporting one another), and most definitely passes the Bechdel test (it's all women talking with other women, and bashing misogynistic men, no less xD!).

   The second part also includes pro-woman representation and criticism of patriarchal double standards and men's behaviour against women that is on point (and awesomely snarky at times!), but it also includes more problematic issues such as the patriarchal concepts of 'modesty' and 'chastity', and other internalized misogyny issues (such as the fact that only 'respectable' women who uphold the patriarchal notions of 'modesty' and 'virtue' will be welcome in the City). We have to bear in mind, though, that one aspect of Christine's anti-misogynist and pro-woman strategies was to advise women to conform to these patriarchal mindsets in order not to be scorned and attacked by the repressive society they were living in. To her view, Christine was actually trying to help women and countering the misogynist stereotypes that painted women as 'sinful by nature', 'impure because of their female body' and 'lascivious adulterers'.

    The third part was my least favourite and focuses mainly on religion - it's particularly distasteful in its description of saints and martyrdom and had to skip the details when I was nearly half-through. It also includes some problematic issues having to do with the fact that, for all her remarkable criticism, Christine, like I mentioned above, doesn't really challenge the patriarchal societal system - Thus, she also falls into internalized misogyny/religious brainwashing by promoting female compliance and gender roles - I especially suffered through the very last part where wives are advised to tolerate and be devoted to their husbands no matter how wayward or cruel they may be :/ In the second part, however, Christine actually also criticizes wayward and abusive husbands and unequal marriages (and, like I mentioned above, Christine's own reasons for this 'promotion of the traditional statu quo' discourse were to protect women from societal retaliation rather than because of a purely misogynistic anti-women mindset. Still problematic, but we also have to bear that in mind).

 
  Christine's books seem at times almost contradictory in the way they alternate pro-woman activism and a harsh criticism of men's entitlement, misogyny and their treatment of women (issues which are tackled in a remarkable 'modern feminism' way, like I mentioned) with her own brainwashed religious upbringing and internalized misogyny, promoting biological determinism, gender roles, and the patriarchal statu quo (such as the modesty mindset and women being of use to the world basically if they benefit men in some way - being good wives/daughters/etc). Sometimes these two views are to be found side by side in the very same page, which also makes me think that, although she was already pretty enlightened for her day, Christine was maybe also less brainwashed by Patriarchy that she chooses to let on, potentially choosing to alternate her more progressive pro-woman ideas with the more regressive patriarchal ideas of her contemporary society and sphere, as a tactic in order to defend herself from criticism in a society which still punished people harshly for 'heresy' and the like (for example, when tackling the issue of whether women should be allowed to rule and be involved in lawmaking, she goes from using biological determinism and established gender roles to justify the statu quo to then stating that women are able to do anything and giving a handful of examples of ruling queens who made laws and governed admirably).

   She also uses the 'selective quotation' tactic against the misogynistic authors she criticizes in a really good way, quoting their sources - Greco-Roman mythology and culture and the Bible - in a way that only highlights pro-woman content and refutes their own misogynistic propaganda. A pretty intelligent move that made her pro-woman arguments difficult to refute unless misogynistic men wanted their religious piety and respect to Classical authority figures to be put into question xD. 

 

Other works I've read: I also really liked the useful introduction by Rosalind Brown-Grant, with whom I agree on nearly all points about Christine's feminist stance and interpretation of her writings (also read her book Christine de Pizan and the Moral Defence of Women: Reading Beyond Gender). I also recommend Charity Cannon Willard's Biography for a fuller understanding of Christine's life.

 

More about her apparent promotion of gender roles and the unequal statu quo after reading the sequel: 

In the Treasure of the City of Ladies/Book of the Three Virtues , which at first may seem to be just a courtesy book full of the promotion of the backward ideas of the time, it becomes clearer that Christine was advising women to comply to society's conventional roles, mindsets and expectations as a way to offer strategies to protect women from harm in a ruthless patriarchal society and help them survive the attacks of unforgiving misogynist slanderers :/ She doesn't actually denounce those social inequalities and gender roles, focusing rather on the 'moral and spiritual' equality of women and men in regards to the pursuit of virtue rather than social equality and rights, but her aim was pretty feminist and subversive at the time all the same, and I think that Christine is pretty praiseworthy for that, internalized misogyny/classism/heteronormativity/problematic religious views aside. 

   The main difference between Christine's brand of feminism and the more modern feminism is, thus, that she doesn't even contemplate the possibility of changing and trying to abolish an unequal system (patriarchy), she tends to "just" acknowledge misogyny in some of its forms and denounce misogynist authors who spout patriarchal double standards (no small deed and already incredibly revolutionary for the time!). She defends women by refuting misogynistic stereotypes, but does not actually consider the possibility to fight for equality and liberation in society per se - So the thing she ends up doing, especially in the sequel, is advising women how to cope with society as it is, with all its gender roles and misogyny, and how to tolerate the statu quo, which usually means endorsing gender roles in order to try to protect women from harm :/ 

For all her revolutionary thinking and intelligent tactics against misogynistic men, she is still *also* suffering from internalized sexist issues due to her socialization and patriarchal religious upbringing and sphere, of course (especially regarding the modesty mindset issue. That and religion in general are the two things that really fetter her, I think :S) - something that should have been nearly impossible not to be in that context, really. But in spite of all that, her more progressive and remarkably pro-woman ideas shine through in a way that definitely do make Christine a 'feminist' (most definitely a pro-woman activist who criticized and denounced quite a lot of aspects of her patriarchal society,), and paved the way for modern feminism.

So that's the review! It started as a review of the City but ended up commenting on the Treasure as well, in order not to have to write two separate reviews xD Will start posting the Twitter and talk content in the near future!