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.
One thought on “How and why does Pizan depict women as peacemakers and builders of alliances?”
Comments are closed.
As I totally agree with your argument on Pizan showing, that she can make her audience see the value worth in women, she has also contradicted herself a couple of times during the book. In the sections where she claimed that women and men are in the same sphere, and women should tolerate their husbands, then in other sections of the book she encourages them to leave their wicked husbands.