Christine de Pizan’s Contestable Feminism Felix Kimber Christine de Pizan’s Cité de Dames is a remarkable work for a number of reasons, not least because of its sheer literary and metaphorical creativity. It is more well known, however, as being one of the first pieces of literature in western canon to provide a distinctly female and anti-misogynist voice to the debate concerning women’s rights; this was a debate which had, for millennia, been populated almost solely by men, and one which had been overwhelmingly discriminatory. De Pizan’s work is situated in a fascinating period of gender discourse, in a historical and intellectual time period often called the querelle des femmes. This was a period in which both men and women sought to agitate the traditionally held views surrounding gender and inferiority which had permeated European society for millennia. Although de Pizan’s arguments are widely considered to have been radical for her time and should not be overlooked as an incendiary
piece
of
western
literature,
scholars
have
long
debated
whether
her
contribution to the querelle des femmes warrants her the title of an early feminist. This essay will argue that Christine de Pizan should be credited with laying the intellectual and literary foundation for what would become feminism, however, she should not herself be considered a feminist.
The first part of this essay will outline and justify criteria, evaluating de Pizan’s title as an
early
feminist,
thus
providing
brief
definitions
of
potentially
ambiguous
and
ideological terms. The second part of this essay will contend that while de Pizan provides a critical voice to the querrele des femmes, she is ultimately writing from within a very exclusive echelon of French society, therefore failing to offer a truly intersectional and feminist treatise. This essay will then argue that de Pizan’s arguments do little to challenge the structural features of a patriarchal early-modern Europe. Finally, it can be highlighted that de Pizan should be considered an incipient feminist, rather than an early feminist; although she may lack the credentials to be classified as belonging
to
the
feminist
movement,
she
undoubtedly
provides
an
impassioned
argument for the personhood and humanity of European women.
To begin to assess the validity of de Pizan’s title of an early feminist, we must first arrive at some sort of definition of what it actually means to be a feminist. This is a naturally controversial task, and one which scholars and commentators have not been able to resolve.
Karen
Offen,
in
her
article
Defining
Feminism:
A
Comparative
Historical
Approach, notes that asserting the definition of any ‘ism… conservatism, liberalism, socialism,’ is a difficult project, given that these terms are often weaponised against
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