CHRISTIAN EGALITARIANISM: THE BOOK OF THE CITY OF LADIES VERSUS THE BIBLE

The Bible is the sacred text of Christianity and Judaism and it contains stories about the lives of the people in the past. Some of these stories are about the women. In them, the women are either represented in derogatory terms such as sinfulbeing the descendants of Eve or portrayed less important than the men. In both cases, the women are not given the position they deserve and the male-female inequality inherent in the society gains strength with the holy book. On the other hand, taking some verses of it as their mainstay, Christian egalitarians defend that both sexes are equal in the eyes of God. Similarly, 14th century French author Christine de Pizan purports that the women are as intelligent and powerful as the men. To this end, she provides us with many woman portraits. Her stories function as a reply to the ones in the Bible and try to refute the misrepresentation of the women in it. Hence, it would not be wrong to state that she was among the first defenders of equality between the sexes and that she was courageous enough to stand up to the holy book.