The Book of the City of Ladies

From the Introduction... Although The Book of the City of Ladies was written more than half a millenium ago, it is filled with potent observations for our times. The querelle des femmes the woman question in late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century France—articulated its arguments in much the same way as today's debate about the equality of women. Here, in The Book of the City of Ladies, Christine intersperses her tales of formidable and exemplary heroines of the past with down-to-earth remarks about the wrongs done to women by society's attitudes and opinions. Her tone is not shrill, but forbearing; her comments trenchant; she never whines. She indicts men, Portia-like, from a position of superior benevolence, enacting the drama of women's greater moral qualities by refusing the line of violence or suppliant weakness. Christine de Pizan was born in a court and she was an adept of courtly ways; her strategy in her attack is courteous, and her courtesy, with its appearance of frankness, even artlessness, conceals a fair bit of cunning, and a deal of rage.