Proto-feminism in the utopian works of Christine de Pizan and Margaret Cavendish

The feminist movement, particularly in the French school of the 1980s and 1990s, has emphasised the necessity for women writers to establish an assertive feminine identity and authority that are not constrained by the masculine hegemonies observed thus far. However, a retrospective examination of literary history reveals that women had already produced remarkable works prior to the emergence of the movement. This study examines two women writers from different historical periods who predated the emergence of feminism as a literary and intellectual movement: Christine de Pizan who wrote during the Middle Ages, and Margaret Cavendish who wrote during the 17th century. The paper suggests that in Christine de Pizan’s The Book of the City of Ladies (1405) and Margaret Cavendish’s The Description of a New World, Called The Blazing World (1666), both women have produced proto-feminist properties that explicitly address the reconstruction of women’s roles in society and assert their authorial autonomy as female writers, by employing utopian approach.