A City Of Some Ladies Summary

A City of Some Ladies: Religious and Economic Exclusivity in the Works of Christine De Pizan Though Christine De Pizan argued for women’s spiritual equality, she reinforced the exclusive economic and religious ideology of her time through her definitions of female virtue. The examples of extraordinary women from history in The Book of the City of Ladies ultimately serve as exemplars of a narrow feminine ideal. In an attempt to appeal to her largely male readership, Pizan constructed her argument within the parameters of pervasive patriarchal notions of class and religion, suggesting that only a select in-group of religiously “virtuous,” economically privileged women were meritorious of respect.
Pizan wrote during a period in which the Church