The dispute of woman (“querelle des femmes”) is a debate on the nature of woman.
On one side of the quarrel, many argued that women were inferior to men because man was created by God first, and were therefore stronger and more important. Also, much of Christianity throughout the ages, has viewed women as the Daughters of Eve, the original temptress responsible for humanity being expelled from the Garden of Eden. See The original sin, our Christian heritage.
As Renaissance humanism developed, there was great interest in returning to classical Greek and Roman philosophy. Classical philosophy held that women were inferior to men at a physical level, and this physical inferiority made them intellectually inferior as well.
Catherine Claude, explains that Starting in the 13th century we saw a rise in the intensity of hate towards woman. She explains that the resurgence followed the creation of universities and the struggle to control knowledge. As education became a requirement for power, women, Jews, and lay Christians were excluded.
This thesis is interesting to understand the origin of the misogyne speech. If woman are insulted, is not because they are different from man, instead is because they are very likely. Mona Chollet explains that denigrating woman was nothing but a subterfuge based on no objective evidence, some examples on the roots of misogyne speech are:
- an ambivalent relationship with the mother
- jealousy over the fact that women bear children
- the need to control women in order to control one’s lineage
- Woman are grotesque (giving birth, menstruating) so man should be afraid.
Fatima Ouassak says:
We tend to think that racist and/or sexist prejudices are based on simple misunderstandings, that merely becoming aware of them would be enough for them to disappear, along with the discrimination that stems from them. But that’s not true: “Prejudices serve a purpose. They are used to justify the system of discrimination, which itself has a function: to unequally regulate access to resources.”
Some ending quotes:
- Tertullien, II century: “And do you not know that Eve is you? She lives in this world, the sentence of God against this sex. So live, as you must — but as the accused. You are the gateway of the Devil; you who broke the seal of the Tree; you, the first deserter of divine law; you who convinced the one the Devil could not attack Adam; you who, with such ease, shattered the man, the image of God.”
- For the Greeks woman are a poisoned gift, intended to punish men. Hésiode: Pandore.
- Jean Delumeau et Guy Bechtel: Woman has been described as “the product of a supernumerary bone (Adam’s rib),” a “bag of excrement,” a “viper,” a “mayfly.
References
(2025). The woman question. [Online]. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_woman_question [Accessed 1 May 2025]. Claude, C. (2000). La querelle des femmes: la place des femmes des Francs à la Renaissance. [Online]. Available at: https://books.google.fr/books?id=5_8oAAAAYAAJ&q=la+querelle+des+femmes&dq=la+querelle+des+femmes&hl=&as_pt=BOOKS&cd=5&source=gbs_api [Accessed 1 May 2025].