Why is it never women who write about women? Why is it always and only
men who expend rivers of ink in treatises, poems, eulogies, and scornson this woman-object, artificially rendered so mysterious, stereotyped,
and caricatured as to seem voiceless , conscienceless, or speechless?
---- This is the starting point of the reflections of Christine de
Pizan, born in Venice in 1364 and moved to France in 1369 following her
father Tommaso da Pizzano, astronomer and astrologer to the court of
Charles V. De Pizan spent more than a decade in the comforts of court,
immersed in culture: her father (against her mother's wishes) offered
her an education equal to that of her brothers, and de Pizan lived from
childhood in an intellectually stimulating environment, surrounded by a
love of knowledge and the books of the royal library of the Louvre, to
which the very young Christine had free access.
Thus grew this extraordinary bilingual writer, poet, and thinker
(trilingual considering Latin), a profound lover of music, poetry, and
literature, but also of history, philosophy, and medicine. De Pizan was
not only a writer, but also recognized as the first secular historian
and the first professional writer on the European continent, dedicated
to works in both prose and verse.
It's worth remembering what de Pizan herself recognized as two turning
points in her life, which would change radically after 1390 (though,
amidst these difficulties, they also provided her with yet another
creative and renewing impulse): in 1380, the death of Charles V meant
the de Pizan family lost their privileges and court favors and began a
period of financial hardship, exacerbated by the death of their father,
Thomas. Then, in 1390, Christine's husband and the father of her three
children, a notary and court secretary whom she had married ten years
earlier at her father's suggestion, died. Christine De Pizan chose
neither to marry again nor to immediately enter a convent, a courageous
and unconventional choice for the time.
After her husband's death, de Pizan underwent what she calls a
metamorphosis, describing it so vividly that her words delineate the
scene of a metamorphosis that was not only symbolic, but almost
physical: a transformation of meaning, posture, and imagination that led
her first to work as a copyist and calligrapher, and then as a
professional literary authorbut also, as mentioned, a physical
transformation. De Pizan recounts dreaming of Fortune touching every
part of her body to strengthen her limbs and give her vigor, a word I
choose not by chance: "then I became a real man," de Pizan tells us, to
summarize her transition to an increasingly adult, autonomous, and
independent lifewhich at the time was, as we know, reserved for men. It
is symptomatic that a "progressive" personality like de Pizan identifies
his economic and cultural emancipation with the categories of
masculinity, describing this intellectual and biographical
metamorphosisetched in his fleshas a "becoming a man." It is noteworthy,
moreover, that his emancipation is dictated by exceptional and
contingent needs: there are no revolutionary ambitions, no desire to
break the status quo and the systemic liberation of women and the second
sexes, but "only" a valorization and highlighting of the possibility of
emancipation when necessary.
With her writings and thought, de Pizan participated in the so-called
"querelle des femmes," a twentieth-century term used to describe the
intellectual debate that developed between the 13th and 18th centuries
in Europe, particularly in France, which included reflections on the
equality of the sexes (today we would perhaps call them "gender
equality") and their respective roles, tasks, and inclinations. In the
work of de Pizan, who died in the French monastery of Poissy around
1430, her unique biographical journey intertwines with her historical
and cultural awareness, her proto-feminist sensibility, and her literary
talent. Her last work, composed in 1429 after more than a decade of
silence, is dedicated to her contemporary Joan of Arc: de Pizan's is the
first poem on the French heroine and the only one composed before her
assassination.
Between 1404 and 1405, de Pizan wrote the work for which she is best
known: The City of Ladies (or Women ), a counter-narrative to the myths,
stereotypes, and sexist and misogynistic impositions of all ages. In The
City of Ladies, the protagonist Christine converses with three ladies:
Reason, Justice, and Righteousness, and the author, de Pizan (who are
actually the same person), intertwines their voices with the many
stories of women who stood out for their intelligence, sagacity, and
tenacitybut also, and perhaps above all, for their stubbornness, a theme
that runs throughout the text.
The work describes, in three books, the construction of a city of women
in the sense of: founded by women, inhabited by women, designed for
women. The first book opens with a scene of solitude. Christine, the
protagonist, is in her room and, during a study break, begins reading a
book that, page after page, reveals sexist and misogynistic ideas about
the "vicious nature" of women. Although she doesn't recognize these
characteristics in the women around her, she is aware that such thoughts
lead her to contempt for women, starting with herself and her own
bodyrecall, in this regard, the aforementioned metamorphosis toward the
masculine. At this juncture, the three ladies, Reason, Justice, and
Righteousness, appear, sent by Providence to rescue her from her
ignorance. As she is pointed out, it is precisely ignorance (in the
sense of lack of knowledge) that has made her subservient to the
opinions and beliefs of othersand indeed, today we would say: we all
internalize patriarchal ideas, albeit with varying degrees of awareness,
resistance, and capacity for deconstruction. But the three ladies also
have another purpose: they want to ensure that women have a safe place,
and they will build a city for them. Here too, themes dear to today's
feminist discourse return: do we have a safe place? Are the streets we
walk safe? And the homes we live in? What do we learn in our families,
at school, in the squares? Are we truly safe from the violence of hands
and knives? And from that of words? Why don't we build a city tailored
to us, after centuries in which philosophy and society tell us that "Man
is the measure of all things"? That "Man is the measure of all things"
was told to us by Protagoras in the 5th century BC, and is reiterated to
us by every inch of the world we live in (for further information, I
recommend reading "Invisibles: How the World Ignores Women in Every
Field. Data in Hand" by Caroline Criado-Perez). And what about us?
And so, we were saying, with de Pizan we build a city tailored to women.
Each of the three ladies has a task, and each book narrates a phase in
the construction of the city of women, alternating analysis of sexist
and misogynistic stereotypes with their refutation, which occurs both
theoretically and through the list of examples of intelligent, strong,
persevering, and stubborn women: Christine is invited to dig a ditch
"with the hoe of her intelligence," metaphorically removing debris and
prejudices. Patriarchal stereotypes, beliefs, and impositions are
reviewed and gradually refuted by the three ladies, with the result that
the work proceeds by alternating and integrating theses (a stereotype, a
prejudice, a misogynistic belief), antithesis (a refutation of the
thesis supported by arguments and examples from women's lives), and
synthesis (the thesis intertwined with the antithesis, in a
proto-dialectic dynamic, and the outcome: the construction of a portion
of the city).
In the first book, Christine asks Reason "if God ever wanted to honor
the female intelligence of the higher sciences." Indeed, she says, "Men
claim that women have poor intellectual capacity." Reason replies:
"Daughter, from everything I have told you before, you can understand
that precisely the opposite is true. And to explain it to you more
clearly, I will give you some examples as proof. I repeat it to you, and
have no doubt to the contrary, that if it were the custom to send little
girls to school and teach them the sciences as they do boys, they would
learn just as well and understand the subtleties of all the arts, as
they do." (I quote from book one from memory.)
In the first book, Reason will direct the construction of the city's
foundations and walls with the help of warriors, scholars, and
intellectuals whose extraordinary lives are remembered; in the second
book, Righteousness will construct buildings and roads and begin
populating the city with prophets and women devoted to their families;
finally, in the third, Justice will welcome other inhabitantsincluding
saints, virgins, martyrs, and the one whom de Pizan calls the Queen of
Heaven, welcomed among princesses, queens, and ladies (de Pizan, like
other thinkersand thinkersis a product of her time!). These three phases
of building the city of women can be thought of as a metaphor for three
phases of restructuring Knowledge: the deconstruction of prevailing and
dogmatic ideas (digging the moat), the formation of new knowledge
(foundations and walls), and, finally, the birth and diffusion of a new
knowledge (buildings, roads, inhabitants)an original, divergent, and
stubborn knowledge. a rebellious, uncomfortable, disruptive knowledge.
Because even male Knowledge, with a capital K, comes from human beings,
all too human . And it is not infallible. So when Christine says, "I am
very surprised by the opinion of some men, according to which they do
not want their wives, daughters, or relatives to learn science, for fear
that their morals will be corrupted," the lady first comments, "From
this you can understand that not all male opinions are based on reason."
Here's the starting point: clear the debris, dig the trench, and lay a
new foundation.
Serena Arrighi Germinal Carrara Group
https://umanitanova.org/christine-de-pizan-una-pensatrice-protofemminista/
_________________________________________
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