I've been following John and JoAnn's contributions with
great interest. I would suggest that the concept of
chastity as a distinct gender identity never quite went
away, tho' it was often obscured and qualified; and that in
the later medieval period, quite different conceptions of
gender and chastity can co-exist within the same text. To
return to women's monasticism, claustration perhaps mutes
the radical potential of chastity , both by isolating it
from the world & so denying its wider relevance, and also by
insisiting that even chaste women are still women, and so in
need of protection. JoAnn's work, of course, has influenced
my thinking on these matters.
Sarah Salih
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