Modern Muse

Born in 1364 in the Republic of Venice, Christine de Pizan was uniquely positioned to empower women with her radical (for the times) philosophies. As a daughter of the astrologer to King Charles V of France and wife of a notary and royal secretary, she had influence on the royal family and eventually earned patronages among nobles; thus, her writing was read, discussed and circulated. She daringly defended women’s rights to education, writing, “If it were customary to send little girls to school and teach them the same subjects as boys, they would learn just as fully and would understand the subtleties of all arts and sciences.”

There is no shortage of material on de Pizan for your further reading. Some 21st century critics assert that not all of her ideas about women’s rights were, by modern standards, feminist in nature. However, as Whitney Mannies wrote in a March 9 article in The Lily, “We ought not to look to history to find good feminists, but to understand women on their own terms, and to find common cause with the alloyed quality of women’s power, where gender, then as now, is a treacherous line, at once authoritative and limiting.”

Given the constructs of feudal society, I admire de Pizan who dared write, “Not all men (and especially the wisest) share the opinion that it is bad for a women to be educated. But it is very true that many foolish men have claimed this because it displeased them that a woman knew more than they did.”

RPO