Renaissance Women
During the Renaissance, women were not seen as educational or independent. The women of the Renaissance were the man’s shadow. They were regarded more for their delicacy and beauty rather than their intelligence. Their main role in life during that time was to marry, have children, and to take care of the household. Despite these facts, some women were able to break out of these statistics. I believe that these women of that time should be honored simply for the fact that they were ones who made a name for themselves, and not just by their looks. This is significant being that the fight for equality has been a long and treacherous one and some are not aware that it began way back in those times.
To our knowledge women were not then known to be intelligent- they held the work of their homes and nothing else. I will first explain how women were seen by men and what they were entirely valued for. After I have given the facts on that, I will explain the path to equality- how they came about doing so. Which was lead in part by women distributing their own literary works. I will give examples of works of the women that gave insight on how tough it really was for them and how they shouldn’t have been looked down upon.
In the text, “The Humanistic Tradition”, we are given the idea that women were only good for house tasks and were solely known for their beauty. Directly quoted, “Renaissance women’s occupation remained limited to service tasks, such as midwifery and inn keeping.” Once a woman married in the Renaissance, their opportunities would become limited because the man was considered superior. Women were looked so down upon it was believed that women were too slow and delicate to uphold the responsibility of ra...
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...kept quiet simply because of the superiority of men- unlike Lucrieta and Christine. The fact that women were kept in their homes to clean confirms that they did not do much to change this stereotype. Since the Renaissance, much has changed, thankfully. I cannot imagine how strenuous it must have been for women to constantly live under the shadow of someone who did not create them- men.
Work Cited
De Pisan, Christine. "The Book of the City of Ladies." Hanover College. N.p.. Web. 29 Oct 2012. .
Deslauriers, Marguerite, "Lucrezia Marinella", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = .
Fiero, Gloria. The Humanisitc Tradition. 6th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 34-39. Print.
In the book, Giovanni and Lusanna, by Gene Bucker, he discusses the scandalous actions of a Florentine woman taking a wealthy high status man to court over the legality of their marriage. Published in 1988, the book explains the legal action taken for and against Lusanna and Giovanni, the social affects placed on both persons throughout their trial, and the roles of both men and women during the time. From the long and complicated trial, it can be inferred that women’s places within Florentine society were limited compared to their male counterparts and that women’s affairs should remain in the home. In this paper, I will examine the legal and societal place of women in Florentine society during the Renaissance. Here, I will argue that women were the “merchandise” of humanity and their main objective was to produce sons.
In the traditional political history of Italy the people outside of the ruling class of the society were rarely studied. Only with the use of social history did the issues of class and gender begin to be debated by scholars. Numerous recent articles have done a great job of analysing particularly men of high status. In this paper I will look at the lower classes of Renaissance Florence. More specifically, I will center my focus on the lives of women during this era, how they were treated and viewed by people of other classes and how women were viewed and treated by men.
Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. "Do Women Need The Renaissance?" Gender & History 20.3 (2008): 539-557. Academic Search Complete. Web. 13 Mar. 2014.
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