Good role models are hard to find. In most places we look, we see celebrities glorifying “sexual liberation” (a promiscuous hook-up culture), expressing “nice” opinions about shifting cultural winds (virtue-signaling political correctness), and admonishing everyone to just “do you” (be narcissistic). Young people of both sexes, but especially females, are suffering from record rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses today due to the bewildering number of conflicting messages they receive and the glamorous but unrealistic social comparisons they make.
One woman, renowned in her day, had advice of a different kind to offer. And in support of her views, she rallied all the most famous women in history behind her.
Christine de Pizan was born in Venice in 1364 but spent most of her life in France. Her father, a court astrologer and physician to King Charles V, taught her to read and write and encouraged her love of study—an uncommon practice for women at that time. She made a happy but brief marriage to a royal secretary. When her husband died of the Black Plague, she was left with an extended family to care for and took a job in Paris copying manuscripts to make ends meet. After doing this for several years, she began writing her own books, which found an audience and earned her aristocratic patronage. She is the first woman to successfully make a living from her pen alone.
Pizan wrote dozens of literary works spanning every genre popular at the time. Of all these, the one she is most remembered for is “Le Livre de la Cité des Dames” (The Book of the City of Ladies), a biographical catalogue of famous women. What sets it apart—not only from previous books in this genre, but all others authored before her—is that she sets out to defend women from misogynistic attacks that argued women were inferior to men.
The book begins with Pizan sitting in her study surrounded by books, wondering “why on earth it was that so many men, both clerks and others, have said and continue to say and write such awful, damning things about women and their ways.” As she is “sunk in these unhappy thoughts,” she has a vision in which three majestic ladies—personifications of Reason, Rectitude, and Justice—appear to her. They task her with building a City of Ladies (in book form) that will house examples of women who have made important contributions to civilization.
In laying the foundations of her city, Reason describes to Pizan women of great ability and achievement. When Pizan asks Reason if there have been any women whose minds are equal to those of men, Reason answers that, although women have weaker bodies, “their minds are in fact sharper and more receptive when they do apply themselves.” Reason provides, as an example, the life of Cornificia, a noblewoman of the late Roman Republic. If you are like most modern people, you have never heard of Cornificia. But she was a remarkable woman who, Pizan tells us, “refused all normal female occupations in order to devote herself to her books.” Through her unwavering scholarship, she became one of the foremost poets of her time. She also drank in philosophy and other disciplines, “as if it were mother’s milk.” Cornificia illustrates how one can overcome obstacles through effort and mental dedication.
To build the city walls, Rectitude gives Pizan instances of virtuous women who devoted themselves to others. One of these was Cassandra, the daughter of King Priam of Troy, a prophetess who foresaw the fate of her fellow Trojans and tried to warn them of the imminent fall of their civilization.
Cassandra’s story is a tragic one. In Aeschylus’s play “Agamemnon,” she is cursed by the gods: given the gift of foresight, no one believes any of the truths she utters. She even has a vision of her own death and the deaths of all the drama’s principal characters, which she is unable to prevent. And yet she did not let up and continued to tell everyone what was going to happen. In our own day, we can certainly think of many truth-tellers who are ridiculed and persecuted for having the courage to be honest. While their situations are not enviable ones, we should admire the sacrifice they make for their loved ones and countrymen through their refusal to be silent in the face of tyranny.
In building the city’s high towers and turrets, Justice provides Pizan with examples of women who remained steadfast in their religious beliefs. One of these is Saint Catherine, a faithful woman who was loved by Roman Emperor Maxentius. The story goes that when Maxentius came to Alexandria to offer a pagan sacrifice, the young Catherine approached him to address the error of his ways. In response, Maxentius assembled 50 philosophers to debate Catherine, who defeated them in argument and convinced them to convert to Christianity. Maxentius, in a rage, ordered the philosophers to be burnt to death, but they emerged from the fire unsinged. Later, the emperor offered Catherine his hand in marriage. She refused, and he ordered her to be beheaded. When she was martyred, it is said that milk, rather than blood, poured from her wounds, and an oil flowed from her tomb that cured illnesses.
Like Cassandra, Saint Catherine’s life was, ultimately, not a happy one. But it is still capable of inspiring. She demonstrates a principle also held by Socrates: that it is better to suffer evil than to do evil. Though suffering brings pain, the sufferer remains free of spiritual corruption and can be held up as a moral example for others. And if evildoers do not receive just retribution in life (as Maxentius later did), then they will be fairly dealt with in the afterlife—both the spiritual one and the earthly one where their memory will be vilified.
While Pizan advocated for women’s moral equality with men, she was not championing legal equality or calling for a revolutionary restructuring of society. The types of virtues she upheld, moreover—chastity, piety, humility, devotion to family and country—are antagonistic to most so-called “virtues” dominant in our mainstream culture. Pizan’s city of the spirit is, ultimately, one that is meant to “accommodate all deserving women”—not only of the past, but the future as well. In the final chapter, she addresses those yet unborn: “My beloved ladies, I beg you not to abuse this new legacy like those arrogant fools who swell up with pride when they see themselves prosper and their wealth increase.” But for those who “love virtue, glory, and a fine reputation,” the City of Ladies remains a place where women of all places and times are forever welcome.