Christine de Pizan takes on an argumentative tone in her works, a good deal of them condemning male scholars before her for their portrayal of women in their writing. She is very straightforward with her arguments in each work, boldly confronting them for their misogynistic characterization of women and toxic portrayals of masculinity. However, in Le Livre de la Cité des Dames (The Book of the City of Ladies), Christine chooses to lay out her argument very differently, instead constructing 3 divine female figures to make her arguments for her, providing strong counterclaims to common misogynistic presumptions using textual evidence. 

Something that sticks out to me about this work is the way in which the seventh section, in which Christine herself asks Lady Justice if women were meant to practice law, citing the writing of multiple male scholars on the subject not even 5 years preceding this novel. Unlike in recent sections, the angel does not give any evidence as to why this sentiment is inaccurate but instead gives an answer that she defends using strategic essentialism This answer gave a major shift in tone, as the argument is less assertive and straightforward. This made me question why this sudden change in attitude was included, and specifically what Christine was going through/what prior events were on her mind as she wrote it. 

I am interested in exploring this subject using psychoanalytic criticism, to figure out if the seventh section of The Book of the City of Ladies is the manifestation of Christine’s internalized misogyny reflected onto text or if this specific choice was made in response to a specific trauma, or both. I would also like to use reader response theory in my analysis of this topic to explore how her use of affective stylistics influences the message she sends.