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Penthesilea was a virgin her entire life before falling in love with the Trojan prince, Hector. When he was killed by Achilles in battle, she promised to avenge his death. This may have been the first reason why the Amazons sided with the Trojans. I also believe that she made the Amazons side with the Trojans because the Trojans were much more civilized and less barbaric than the Greeks. The Greeks represented a lot of the wrong that came from men which is what the Amazons resented and wanted to stay away from.

The Book of the City of Ladies begins with Christine’s criticism of the male authors’ works. Christine believes that women are often maliciously attacked by men. Many male authors use lies and vicious opinions to condemn women and intentionally make women inferior to men. Then Pizan shows readers the great achievements made by women in the past. Pizan also introduces the stories of some intelligent, courageous and virtuous women to readers. Pizan wants readers to know that women and men are equal. People should not easily believe the biased views of male authors against women.

Christine de Pizan writes The Book of the City of Ladies to fight all the negative statements towards women at that time. In this book, she mentions numerous outstanding women to show their capabilities and power. One of the remarkable women she mentions is Orithyia, an Amazon queen, who claims many triumphs during her ruling. When two of her maidens, Menalippe and Hippolyta, are held captive by the Greeks she is determined to save them. In the end, Orithyia is able to come into terms with the Greeks and even forms a pact with them. By doing so, she has avoided unnecessary violence as well as creating new allies. Pizan includes Orithyia as an example that women can be peacemakers and builders of alliances. Pizan writes about Orithyia as someone who can form peace to show that this is only one thing that women can do, but that they are also capable of doing so much more. She wants to prove that women can achieve a lot more but have been held back by the men in their lives. Pizan hopes that her audience can see the value and worth in women and ignore all the ongoing negative stereotypes society has placed upon women. 

In my opinion, there are at least two reasons that Christine de Pizan choose to make the Amazons side with the Trojans rather than the Greeks.

On one hand, the Greece was more powerful than the Troy at that time. Arranging Amazons in the weaker side could highlight their bravery, belligerence and adventurous spirit. Instead of Troy, they tended to challenge the powerful Greece.

On the other hand, it showed the chastity of Amazon Warriors. Penthesilea kept virginity because she thought most of men couldn’t match her. But when Penthesilea heard that Prince Hector who had the same qualities as her, she began to love him. After Hector was killed by Achilles during the war, Penthesilea looked at Hector’s body in a temple and Swore to avenge him. And then she fought until dying. By depiction of this, Pizan displayed the precious virtue that women should be loyal and faithful to their lovers.

The Book of the City of Ladies is a revolutionary book that exemplifies a woman’s perspectives on the lives of women during the Middle Age. Before Pizan’s book, several books had been written by male authors about women, but none had been written by a woman to illustrate their plight. In her book, Pizan gives a comprehensive outline of the actual roles of women as opposed to the expectations of the patriarchal society. She presents the stories of various intelligent and innovative women who contributed greatly to the world. Through her book, Pizan gives the readers an outlook of various heroines who had positive reputations and encourages them to consider their personal experiences when judging the virtue of both men and women in society.

During the beginning of the book The City of Ladies Pizan, Christine de Pizan’s introduces herself as not being confident about herself. She was born and raised mostly around a male-dominated world. She informs the readers that women are outcasts. She shows her feeling that males authors are being sexist towards women. As the male authors introduce a Misogynistic view, they did not have the knowledge for women’s history. The three sisters were the ones to encourage her and inform her that women are as equal as men in all types of ways. She used her knowledge to stand up for women’s rights. She wanted to show to everyone that women should be treated equally the same as the man.

Pizan stood strong to defend women and overturn the existing conception that men are superior in comparison with women. For instance, she turned to the bible over Eve-Adam’s story and strongly defended eve. She argued that the act of Eve giving fruit to her husband, mostly considered as deception of men by women was not a trickery situation but was a sign of sincere and true love. She argues that after Eve was deceived by the devil, she never recognized whether it was a deception aiding to a trap.  Full of love and care she gave her husband to taste how sweet the fruit was as opposed to how the most audience interprets it. In her writing she has criticized the authors whose work undermines the role of women; instead, she has considered women noble beings.

The Book of the City of Ladies is a didactic work. Pizan wants to educate her audience, giving them a new point of view toward literature by using metaphors and examples. She defends feminism by criticizing the literary of misogyny. Since a lot of works are naturally anti-feminism at the age, people tend to think of positive image toward males and negative for females. Pizan not only accuses anti-feminism works but also emphasizes the virtue of women with stories. She brings out issues in three key points, represented by three ladies, Reason, Rectitude, and Justice. For questions from Lady Reason, she points out that several historical female characters are also good at political, educational, and innovative topics. For questions from Rectitude Lady, she tries to twist some negative stereotypes for women in personality, honesty, and sexual behaviors. Lastly, for questions from Justice Lady, she uses Christian stories to highlight the virtue and importance of all females.

Montaigne was a thinker who reinvented the essay more than 500 years ago. His thoughts on a variety of topics feel like they could be written today. A great example of this is his remarks about foreigners. The dominant description of people from distant lands in Montaigne’s day was to depict them as something less than a human, savages even capable of practicing cannibalism. In the 18th century, many writers went the other direction, describing primitive others as better than “civilized” people because they were not spoiled by the modern world. 

In the Essays Montaigne takes a skeptical approach to the question, insisting that studying other cultures requires close attention to facts and details, not the opinions of others, however convincing. The tendency of European travelers of Montaigne’s time was to criticize the cultural practices of others as uncivilized and even dangerous. Montaigne maintains that the more carefully and dispassionately one considers an unknown person, the less likely one will apply his own prejudices to his analysis. It is important to understand Montaigne’s approach. Skepticism in his conception does not deny another person’s opinion but insists on verifiable proof (skepticism, for example, doesn’t refuse to believe in God, but doubts in his existence until reliable evidence). As a result, Montaigne is comfortable believing in the superiority or inferiority of another civilization if one or the other proves more convincing.

 

Pizan advices her readers to change the way they read the work of male authors by exposing their lack of credibility & sexist views. Throughout the first part of The Book of The City of Ladies Pizan demonstrates the misogynistic views presented by male authors, and their lack of knowledge of important women throughout history (biblical, historical, & mythical figures). Pizan accuses male authors of agreeing to distribute the same lie about women and also making women feel bad about the form they were born in since according to male authors they were the vessels of sins. Pizan demonstrates how she disagrees with the negative and misogynistic attitudes towards women imposed by the male authors.