Great Works of Literature I, Spring 2020 – Online – One

How does Pizan advise her readers to change the way they read the work of male authors of the past?

Pizan points out that most of the male authors who depicted women as weakly, vulnerable, and accused women as evil is actually biased of their judgemental acts, personal failure, and fallacies that led them to generalize all women as inferior and harmful parts of the society. She particularly mentions the references like pagan and Christianity, they made in their work to depict women negatively and wrongfully. She asked readers to check the claims male authors made to figure out their biases about the nature of women, she mentions many brave and intelligent women as examples to highlight the true essence of women and to prove that how male authors have been falsifying the true nature of women in their work and she believes when readers can incorporate the real nature of women in their perception, they would be able to analyze many vague claims and demonstration of women have been made by the male authors.