Inside the walls of the City of Ladies are inhabitants who are “valiant ladies of great renown”

The western mind makes definitions; it draws lines



.

A great mind is always universal





--- Cixous

Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. Write yourself. Your body must be heard.

-- Cixous

What? You say you can't make heads or tails of this?

No one fragment carries the totality of the message, but each text (which is in itself a whole) has a particular urgency, an individual force, a necessity, and yet each text also has a force which comes to it from all the other texts.

It's the 1980s, EVERYONE smokes -- Madonna

No smoking allowed -- Scudery

Hey de Scudery: See Rule #4

My, my, aren't you bitchy today.
--- Virginia Slims Libber Lady

Go join a nunnery and find someone to marry you, Isotta

You are not welcome here. We don't accept your scholarly work as it is tainted by the scandal over your unchaste character."
---Scudery

You mean play by Your Rules, Ms. Scudery


Control Freak!
---Isotta Nogarola

Well, maybe we can...

But let's play by the rules.
---Scudery

Oh, so many choices, what a problem to have

I had to cease all scholarly activity when I married in the 1500s. Your problems are problems I would have loved to have had.
---Ginevra Nogarola



But the nature of truth and what one does with that information relates directly to the choices women have made throughout history

For women, a major life choice is whether to have children and how to balance career and a love life -- why can't we talk about that?
---Debi

That's because they had nothing to say until I came along


See Rule 1: Be witty and urbane. How can women be witty and urbane talking about their love lives?
And don't forget Rule 8 puhhlleeezzzze.
Not another chit-chat about the bodily functions of young children.
---Scudery



Alright, ladies let's get started

Yes, Sappho. Thank you for that eloquent definition. If rhetoric can be considered a conversation through the ages about how we define truth and create knowledge and the choices we make or actions we take based on those assumptions, it has been until very recently a conversation mainly among men about living as men. What about us, ladies? Let's imagine that we can talk among ourselves through time about such matters!
---Debi