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Gender Stereotypes

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Lastly, God’s gift of breast milk for Christina to quench her hunger comes across as a sexist food choice for women are viewed as the stereotypical nurturers to the children of men. During one of Christina’s frequent treetop adventures, she becomes unbearably hungry, and prays God will send her down some food. She appears hopeless as she begs for God’s help, thus fully giving into the female stereotype of being a weak, passive being. God steps in like the dominant and protective figure he is to rescue Christina. De Cantimpré describes, “without delay, turning her eyes to herself, she saw that her dry virginal breasts were dripping sweet milk against all laws of nature” (185). Being the creator of all things, God is known to preform some pretty …show more content…

God exercises his male dominance by allowing Christina to drink her own milk because he is the one in control. He grants Christina’s wish, preforms the miracle of lactation without pregnancy, and is responsible for lifting her hunger. Similarly to God, Thomas de Cantimpré can also be viewed as discriminating against Christina’s gender for the way he portrays the scene in which Christina drinks her own breast milk. De Cantimpré focuses heavily on sole the image of Christina’s breast as a source of food. In Caroline Walker Bynum’s Fast, Feast, and Flesh: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women, Bynum speaks of the eating habits of medieval women and the overall significance of food in relation to their lives. According to Bynum, “when male [writers] spoke of God’s motherhood, they focused more narrowly on the soul being nursed at Christ’s breast, whereas women [writers] were apt to associate mothering with punishing, educating, or giving birth as well” (Bynum 15). The term “nursing” does indeed have multiple meanings. Male writers fixating on the association of “nursing” to the “breast” appears discriminatory towards the female gender. Thomas de Cantimpré is an offender of this discrimination for the way in which Christina’s breast milk is mentioned to simply fulfill her hunger. He neglects to correlate this form of mothering to “punishing, educating or giving birth”. The choice

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