The Renaissance Women did to Europe what the Gothic Women writers did to Victorian England. They rock the literary scene and demonstrate to the world that they can stand in a man’s world and still be feminine. Two women in particular, Christine de Pisan and Lucretia Marinella, attack the stereotypic belief that women are not equal to men and that they are not capable of standing firm in a man’s domain.
Renaissance women were held in high esteem only if they were good housekeepers and mothers according to Albertis. In the reading, “Renaissance Women;” a woman’s place is in the home; she is expected to be a good wife, mother and housekeeper. “Renaissance women’s occupation remained limited to service tasks, such as midwifery and innkeeping, but there is ample evidence of an increasingly commercialized economy in which they might compete successfully with men.” Renaissance women were not considered equal to their husbands, yet, there were a few of them like Elizabeth Queen of England and Caterina Sforza of Milan who defied society and blazed a trail in a man’s world.
In the Bible, the first historical recording, God told Adam that he would create a help mate for him, unfortunately, this simple information is hardly practice, hence the foregone conclusion that women are weaker than men and their survival is minimal in a man’s sphere. The sad truth is women believe the ranting of these men and until the turn of the fifteenth century, women were contented to be cowards and hide their attributes behind their men. Distinctly two women of valor decided that they will not succumb to the stereotypic views of a chauvinistic society. And when pseudo-upright men began to belittle women in their writings, they fired right back at them and defend their sex.
Christine de Pisan is one of the first usurper of this movement, she shaped history and one woman in particular, Lucretia Marinella, a renowned writer, took the cause of renaissance women where no other has ever taken it. In her novel The Nobility of and Excellency of Women and the Defects and Vice of Men, she respectably and without apology defends the virtue of women. Undauntingly she unleashes her disdain for men who use the characteristics of a few tainted women to decide the character of all women. Marinella agrees that even though some women might fit the category every woman should not be judge by these standards. The contents of Marinella’s book would make any renaissance woman proud, especially Prisan.
Marinella’s book is used as retaliation “to a contemporary diatribe on the defects of women. “ Women are described as vain, lustful, fickle, idle and inherently flawed. Merinella replies to these accusations and present men as brutal, obstinate, ungracious, discourteous, inconsistent, and vain. She further stated that “men’s flaw anger, envy and self-love drive even the wisest and most learned men to attack women. That is not all Marinella has to say, she saves the best for last. Her most deadly onslaught is saved for Aristotle and his conception of women. Who dares him criticize women when men are no different. They walk around fully dressed for war when there is no war just so others may see them as brave and courageous. They are just hiding under their uniforms when in fact they are mostly cowards.
Even in this twenty-first century, a hint of the renaissance still lingers; however, women who wish to excel does not asllow that stigma to blight them. They have empowered themselves and continue to blaze the trail that their contemporaries lit many years ago. Women are souring in a man’s world.
