Amanda W. Benckhuysen

If we [women] are their [men] inferiors in status, but not in worth, this is an abuse that has been introduced into the world and that men have then, over time, gradually translated into law and custom; and it has become so entrenched that they claim (and even actually believe) that the status they have gained through their bullying is theirs by right.

For Fonte and Tarabotti, however, that God created the woman after the man does not indicate her inferiority but rather her superiority.55 As a seed is inferior to the thing which emerges from it, Fonte comments, so man is more lowly than woman who was created from his body.56 In making her last, God singled out the woman for honor, Tarabotti argues, she being “the compendium of all perfections.”57 Thus, while God infused all his creation with his power, wisdom, and love, he set apart the woman as the final and finishing touch, it being God’s will “that all those catching sight of her should marvel.”

who force women into cloisters, she claims, are like the devil himself who assumes a role that does not belong to him.