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Women's Roles in the Renaissance

Thus all men (and especially the wisest) share the opinion that it is bad for women to be educated. But it is very true that many foolish men have claimed this because it displeased them that women knew more than they did….
If it were customary to send little girls to school and to teach them the same subjects as are taught to boys, they would learn just as fully and understand all the subtleties of all arts and sciences… If they understand less it is because they do not go out and see so many different places and things, but stay home and mind their own work. For there is nothing which teaches a reasonable creature so much as the experience of many different things.
									Christine de Pisan
									The City of Ladies (1504)

Source 1

I think that in her ways, manners, words, gestures, and bearing, a woman ought to be very unlike a man; for just as he must show a certain solid and sturdy manliness, so it is seemly for a woman to have a soft and delicate tenderness, with an air of womanly sweetness in her every movement, which, in her going and staying, and in whatever she says, shall always make her appear the woman without any resemblance to a man.
…And I do think that beauty is more necessary to her than the Courtier, for truly that woman lacks much that lacks beauty.
									Baldassare Castiglione
									The Book of the Courtier (1528)

Question 1

Short answer

Identify and explain Pisan's point of view.

Question 2

Short answer

Identify and explain Castiglione's point of view.

Question 3

Short answer

Explain the similarities or differences between the two authors.

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