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...open to a young woman who had given birth to a child out of wedlock and had then been abandoned by the father. Unable to see a familial or economic future for herself at home, Marie-Louise Victoire Girardin escaped parental disgrace by disguising herself as a man. She joined a scientific expedition to Tasmania as a ship’s steward, calling herself Louis Girardin....

...open to women were limited. Although the Church was organised as a male hierarchy, it did offer women the benefit of education and the means to attain some measure of autonomy. One woman who took advantage of these opportunities was Hildegard of Bingen. Born in the Rhineland, the tenth child of noble parents, Hildegard was educated from the age of eight at the Benedictine...

...open to them were marriage or admission to a religious community. For most, marriages were arranged for them and took place while they were still in their teens, after which wives became the property of their husbands. The primary focus of both elite and peasant married women’s lives revolved round household responsibilities and only in widowhood did they gain legal...