By God, if wommen hadde writen stories,
As clerkes han withinne hire oratories,
They wolde han writen of men moore wikkednesse
Than al the mark of Adam may redresse.
– Geoffrey Chaucer
The Canterbury Tales, The Wife of Bath’s Prologue. A very potent argument against all the misogynistic texts by clerical writers is presented here by the Wife of Bath. They were all written by men! Had women written the stories, she says, they would have documented more wickedness than all the male sex could set right!