Virtues as the building blocks of resilience: Christine de Pizan’s educational project in The Book of the City of Ladies

One particular kind of adversity that people may experience is constituted by being stereotyped as a member of a specific group, for example, on account of one’s gender. Does actively addressing stereotypes help to cultivate one’s resilience? This chapter argues that the medieval writer Christine de Pizan’s (1364-1431) The Book of the City of Ladies, written in 1405, can be read in response to this question. Christine’s City of Ladies describes a walled city that is constructed from stories about virtuous women, and these stories are meant to inspire the reader to develop resilience. In the City of Ladies, and in her own life, Christine particularly promotes and exemplifies virtues of initiative, such as courage, practical judgment, assertiveness, resolve, and vigor. Together, these virtues help a person develop resilience in the face of social and cultural challenges. In the university classroom, The Book of the City of Ladies may be used to help students gain virtue literacy, develop an awareness of situational variables that affect the pursuit of virtue, and reflect on the relationship between virtues of initiative, virtues of endurance, and resilience.