Escrita e Gênero na Pensadora Medieval Cristina de Pisano

Não obstante já encontrarmos algumas mulheres que se destacaram como escritoras na Idade Média, algumas delas, inclusive, que trataram de temas relacionados a questão de gênero, como é o caso, por exemplo, de Hidelgard de Bingen (1098-1165), sendo por isso apontadas por alguns comentadores como precursoras do “feminismo”, mas é Cristina de Pisano (1365-143?), provavelmente, a primeira escritora “feminista” no sentido moderno da palavra. Participou ativamente do famoso movimento crítico-literário no medievo que ficou conhecido pelo nome de Querelle des Femmes, em reação a literatura misógina da época, que teve como estupim o famoso poema Roman de la Rose, escrito por Jean de Meung, em 1280. Eis, portanto, o objetivodeste artigo: apresentar Cristina de Pisano como uma fecunda precursora do movimento feministas moderno, destacando-se, inclusive, em comparação com outras importantes pensadores de seu tempo, por ter feito da arte de escrever uma profissão, e de a colocar a serviço da “causa feminina”.

From Nobility and Excellence to Generosity and Rights: Sophia's Defenses of Women (1739–40)

This article examines two early modern feminist works, Woman Not Inferior to Man (1739) and Woman's Superior Excellence Over Man (1740), written by “Sophia, A Person of Quality.” Scholars once dismissed these texts as plagiarisms or semi-translations of François Poulain de la Barre's De l’égalité des deux sexes (1673). More recently, however, Guyonne Leduc has drawn attention to the original aspects of these treatises by highlighting Sophia's significant variations on Poulain's vocabulary (Leduc 2010; 2012; 2015). In this article, I take Leduc's analysis a step further by demonstrating that Sophia's variations amount to unique and distinctive arguments for the restoration of women's rights, based on both the natural equality and the moral superiority of women compared to men. I argue that Sophia goes beyond Poulain's Cartesian insights to mount a critique of male tyranny characterized as a lack of generosity toward women. My contention is that Sophia's texts represent a culmination in a line of reasoning that extends from the querelle des femmes of the Renaissance to Poulain's Cartesian feminism of the seventeenth century, through to arguments for women's rights in the eighteenth century. Her works thus warrant greater recognition as significant turning points in the history of feminist thought.

Faut-il déprécier l’un pour valoriser l’autre ? Le mépris dans Le Fort inexpugnable de l’honneur du sexe féminin de François de Billon

Le Fort inexpugnable de l’honneur du sexe féminin de François de Billon prend part à la Querelle des femmes, ranimée au XVIe siècle, afin de défendre la dignité du beau sexe. Le mépris y joue un rôle important vu son potentiel persuasif auquel contribuent : sa place dans le schéma rhétorique, les moyens d’expression employés et les thèmes que l’auteur choisit en s’appuyant sur les sources aussi bien antiques que contemporaines. Grâce à tous ces procédés, Billon vise non seulement à dénoncer les idées diffamatoires dirigées contre les femmes et véhiculées par le discours ambiant, mais encore à critiquer et à ridiculiser les philosophes ou les écrivains – y compris ceux de la Renaissance – qui adhèrent aveuglément à ces propos calomniateurs et qui les propagent sans égard aux qualités innombrables de l’espèce féminine.

A Querelle des femmes e a política sexual na Idade Média

O artigo trata da relação entre a chamada querelle des femmes e a política sexual na Idade Média, política que sofre profundas transformações entre os séculos XII e XIII. Essas transformações estão no cerne da querelle, uma manifestação que coloca as mulheres no centro dos debates, trazendo a dialética entre textos de crítica e de defesa do sexo feminino. O expressivo número de textos e referências ao tema, que passam a circular principalmente a partir do século XIV, muitos de autoria feminina, nos falam sobre ela. Para entender esse processo é preciso considerar as questões relativas à política sexual do período, o que faremos a partir do trabalho da filósofa Prudence Allen e da medievalista Milagros Rivera. Apresentaremos as três teorias sobre a política sexual medieval (séculos XII a XV), ressaltando a relação da querelle des femmes com a chamada Revolução Aristotélica.

Autorité féminine, voix masculine : l’égalité des sexes au dix-septième siècle

Cette contribution s’intéresse à quelques stratégies textuelles et théoriques employées au dix-septième siècle par Marie Le Jars de Gournay (1565-1645) et François Poullain de la Barre (1647-1725). Ces derniers se sont impliqués dans la très longue « querelle des femmes ». Gournay et Poullain étaient d’ardents défenseurs de l'égalité des sexes et s’appuyaient tous deux sur le même héritage polémique établi par Christine de Pisan (1364-~1430) et Henri Corneille Agrippa (1486-1535) entre autres. Or, chacun s’exprimait depuis une positionnalité propre à son sexe, son origine et ses préjugés socioculturels tout en exploitant différentes approches rhétoriques pour exprimer sa perspective avec plus ou moins de succès. Nous traiterons de l’importance des contributions et de l’influence de ces deux auteurs en fonction des antécédents sociaux, éducatifs, sexuels, etc. Ils participaient au même débat avec des attentes manifestement différentes du public / lectorat et de réception. Les auteurs, leurs textes et le contexte méritent d’être étudiés de nouveau.

Roman History and the Status of Women

Chapter 3 locates William Thomas’s (d.1554) translation of a succinct but significant moment of the AUC concerning the repeal of the Lex Oppia, a sumptuary law targeting women in particular. The episode shows the women of Rome taking to the streets to demand the law’s repeal, forcing senators and tribunes alike to acknowledge their protest. Thomas thus chose to adapt one of the most arresting examples of women’s engagement in Roman politics. By choosing Livy as a champion of female autonomy, he went firmly against the contemporary grain, vying against more frequent appeals to the AUC as a means of censuring women’s dress and behaviour. Thomas was most probably alerted to this way of reading Livy during his extensive travel in Italy. During the Quattrocento, there had emerged a series of speeches and tracts concerning the status of women, which had similarly harnessed Livy in the defence of womankind. This chapter explores how Thomas was able combine these arguments with his own reading of classical history, producing a bold intervention in the Renaissance querelle des femmes.

Kobiece reguły gry. Spór o kobiety w dialogu Il merito delle donne Moderaty Fonte

Women’s Rules of the Game: A Dispute over Women in the Dialogue Il merito delle donne by Moderata Fonte This paper concerns Moderata Fonte (Modesta dal Pozzo), a female Venetian writer who lived in the 16th century, and a dialogue she wrote, Il merito delle donne (On the Value of Women), in which seven women gathered in a garden have a lively discussion about men and their flaws. The author of the study presents the book and Fonte’s biography in the context of the early-modern dispute over women (querelle des femmes). She then analyses Il merito delle donne in terms of the functionality of both the genre in which it was written and the convention of play (game) that is relevant to the work, in order to answer the question of the importance of these devices for the topic Fonte raises. Skowron writes about what makes Il merito delle donne different from other dialogues published at the time by women, as well as from Balthazar Castiglione’s famous Book of the Courtier (Il libro del Cortegiano), and in discussing the motif of the play she uses the definition of the ludic element of Johan Huizinga of Homo ludens. She points to the presence of particular determinants of play in Il merito delle donne, wondering how the voluntary basis of the game, limited time and space, imposed rules or a situation different from ordinary life affect the female characters’ freedom to express their opinions in discussion, as well as the reception of the work itself. Il merito delle donne owes its unique character to its form because it allows not only different views in a dispute over women to be presented, but above all it involves the reader in a discussion which does not end with the last page of the dialogue.