Gender roles, Subject and Power

The roles of women spanning from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance remained somewhat stagnant. During the middle ages, women were hindered by the church and the male-dominated culture. Many women held the positions of wife, mother, daughter, nun, queen, widow, etc. Specifically, as nuns, women had access to learning which meant they were able to write their own books. Christine de Pizan, a French writer and poet, disputed male author, Jean Meun. Pizan could not, "understand...why men write so scathingly about women when they owe their very existence to them. And she asks, in a question rephrased through history, how can women's lives be known when men write all the books?" (Chadwick 36). 

Christine de Pizan in her study, miniature, from The Works of Christine de Pisan, early fifteenth century

This was a common situation for women because men dominated mostly all aspects of society and women would go unaccredited for their works. The church and its beliefs limited the agency of women as they were restricted from teaching. As a result of the church's power, women were also not permitted to preach, uphold a higher position other than a nun, or become priests. This division between gender roles formulated a profound restriction on the lives of women because even at church, "[women] had learned that God created man to rule the world and everything in it and that it was the work of women to help men perform these tasks, to obey, and to always assume a subordinate role in relation to a powerful man. They were taught that God was male" (Hooks 18). Essentially, even with minor breakthroughs of female writers, such a Pisan, female artists were still degraded and not taken seriously. During this time, women were isolated from the arts because they were unable to attend centers of art education and schools. Not only were women artists viewed as inept in the art world but they were restrained to only what they were permitted to paint. A woman's art had to reflect what she represented in the eyes of the man which was domesticity and subordination. Men were allowed to, "busy themselves with all that has to do with the great art. Let women occupy themselves with those types of art which they have always preferred, such as pastels, portraits, and miniatures. Or the painting of flowers, those prodigies of grace and freshness which alone can compete with the grace and freshness of women themselves" (Chadwick 41). Development only began to emerge during the Renaissance period. However, at the start of this period, women were nevertheless limited to embroidery and were not accepted in the public space of art. Gradually, women were capable of becoming artists but mainly through their family's connection to art and wealth. Women's roles were drastically undergoing change due to their interests in education, 
equality, art, etc. 

Sofonisba Aguissola, Self-Portrait, 1561

Artists like Sofonisba Anguissola provided the layout for art as a profession for women. Anguissola, similar to other artists, faced several trials, such as the prevention of, "her engaging in aesthetic dialogue which revolved around Neoplatonic concepts of the metaphoric relationship between paint and beauty, the earthly and the sublime, the material and the celestial. That Vasri and other male writers responded to Anguissola and her sisters as prodigies of nature rather than artists is even more understandable in the context of aesthetic dialogues which identify the act of painting with the male artist's sexual prowess" (Chadwick 84). Even though many female artists were proven to be just as competent as men, they were continuously ridiculed and subjected to stereotypes. Anguissola and other artists had to overcome such degradation in order to influence those in the future.  

Works Cited: 

• Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society. Langara College, 2016.
• Hooks, Bell. “Understanding Patriarchy”. The Will to Change. New York: Atria Books, 2004. 17-33. Print.