CC EQUALITY - The book of the City of Ladies, Christine de Pizan

The students read various extracts from The book of the city of Ladies, a work written by Christine de Pizan, an Italian-born French poetess and author of the first Western feminist manifesto. They also compare this manifesto with poems she wrote in "Cent ballades d'amant et de dame" (1410), in which she criticises misogyny as a way of life.

The Book of the City of Ladies serves as her formal response to Jean de Meun’s popular Roman de la Rose. Pizancombats Meun's statements about women by creating an allegorical city of ladies. She defends women by collecting a wide array of famous women throughout history. These women are "housed" in the City of Ladies, which is actually the book. As Pizan builds her city, she uses each famous woman as a building block for not only the walls and houses of the city, but also as building blocks for her thesis. Each woman introduced to the city adds to Pisan's argument towards women as valued participants in society. The book, and therefore the city, contains women of past eras, ranging from pagans to ancient Jews to medieval Christian saints. Each woman chosen by three female Virtues – Reason, Rectitude, and Justice – to live in the city acts as a positive example for other women to follow. These women are also examples of the positive influences women have had on society.

After that, each student chooses one of the women described in the book that the author gives as an example of how women can lead a noble existence while contributing to society.