First off, please forgive how uncentered this post is going to be...there are a couple different things I'd like to address about Pizan's work. Overall, I found this piece to be a breath of fresh air. After the Greeks and Romans, Pizan seemed infinitely human. Although I suppose much of this must have been due simply to being written in a more modern language, it seems that she wrote with a more personal style, and, unlike her Mediterranean predecessors, utilized character development and narrative significantly in her rhetoric.
That being said, there were also traits in her writing that were stolen straight out of the mouths of the Greek orators. She utilizes a sort of "question and answer format", much like Phaedrus and Socrates did in their conversations. I thought a lot of Plato's piece while reading Pizan's--she took on the role of Phaedrus, the ignorant student, seeking eagerly the knowledge of the master. But there is a distinct difference, in that this seemed to be Phaedrus' actual identity, he was genuinely a student with no ulterior motives other than learning. Pizan, on the other hand, seeing as she is her own character in this tale, uses this seeming ignorance as a rhetorical device. By asking questions in an ignorant manner I think she seems less preachy, and her piece is something that more readers, especially male ones, at the time could connect with.
Pizan is exactly like any male writer, even if she claims differently.
Like men, se does not walk a line between the sexes, promoting equality. She focuses on what makes women better than men; she portrays men as being evil. She does not tell a lie, mind you. The points she brings up are valid, and her cause is noble. And, seeing that she was writing in a time when the word equality applied little to human rights, the drastic nature of her prose is understandable.
Yet by putting men on par with the devil, by implying that a city of all women is some sort of Utopia, by furthering the gap of acceptance between the genders, is she different than a male writer of the time?
I hope this doesn't seem ignorant or offensive, and I know that the answer to the above question is in many ways "yes".
I agree Pizan promoted gender differences and her dislike for men. I had trouble pegging her as the stereotypical feminist we imagine in this day and age. I don't see her as Rosie the Riveter, more like the chic woman who sits in the corner and controls people with her sexuality. Of course we are coming at this with our own contexts and it is difficult to see the world through Pizan's eyes, but I felt some of her situational narrative was a bit demeaning towards women, rather than empowering. I'm sure she was quite controversial for her time, but I had trouble getting on board with some of what she said, including that idea of total separation between males and females.
ReplyDeleteI kind of saw a role reversal in her writing, like you pointed out, but felt her attempt was a bit unoriginal. Calling men out for their wrong doings and shortcomings almost diverts the main issue entirely. Instead of total separation, maybe the sexes should confront one another to make some sort of agreement or compromise. Government shutdown, anyone? This was written in Pizan's time when women didn't have a fraction of the weight men did, but some of her ideas were a little too extreme for me to agree with.