What Is The Gender Debate According To Ornstein's Roman De La Rose

According to Ornstein, Jean de Meun’s work Roman de la Rose initiates the debate. Blamires, as previously stated, indicates the debate was present in various works that preceded the Roman. Ornstein proposes that this gender debate started in France in the thirteenth century with reactions to de Meun. One of those reactions was from Christine de Pizan who defended women against the Roman de la Rose. What is fascinating about her defense is that a woman is defending women and as a result the structure of her defense is quite different than the traditional back and forth by men who wrote defenses. Christine de Pizan's Book of Ladies establishes a new structure for the debate as previously stated during the thirteenth century. Ovid is another