Renaissance people would not have understood the word gender to refer to categories of people, but they would have easily grasped the concept. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, learned men (and a few women) began what was termed the debate about women (querelle des femmes), a debate about women’s character and nature that would last for centuries. Misogynist (muh-SAH-juh-nihst) critiques of women from both clerical and secular authors denounced females as devious, domineering, and demanding. In answer, several authors compiled long lists of famous and praiseworthy women exemplary for their loyalty, bravery, and morality. Christine de Pizan was among the writers who were interested not only in defending women but also in exploring the reasons behind women’s secondary status. They were anticipating discussions about the social construction of gender by six hundred years.

Beginning in the sixteenth century, the debate about women also became a debate about female rulers. This debate was sparked primarily by dynastic accidents in many countries, including Spain, England, Scotland, and France, that led to women ruling in their own right or serving as advisers to child kings. The questions were vigorously and at times viciously argued. They directly concerned the social construction of gender: could a woman’s being born into a royal family and educated to rule allow her to overcome the limitations of her sex? Should it? Or stated another way: which was (or should be) the stronger determinant of character and social role: gender or rank?

Ideas about women’s and men’s proper roles determined the actions of ordinary men and women even more forcefully. The dominant notion of the “true” man was that of the married head of household, so men whose social status and age would have normally conferred political power but who remained unmarried did not participate in politics to the same level as their married brothers. Unmarried men in Venice, for example, could not be part of the ruling council.

Women were also understood as either “married or to be married.” This meant that women’s work was not viewed as financially supporting a family — even if it did — and was valued less than men’s. If they worked for wages, and many women did, women earned about half to two-thirds of what men did, even for the same work. The maintenance of appropriate power relationships between men and women, with men dominant and women subordinate, served as a symbol of the proper functioning of society as a whole. Disorder in the proper gender hierarchy was linked with social upheaval and was viewed as threatening. Of all the ways in which Renaissance society was hierarchically arranged — social rank, age, level of education, race, occupation — gender was regarded as the most “natural” and therefore the most important to defend.