It is very easy to comb through scholastic sources to find those that derogate the feminine in relation to the masculine. The most famous is thirteenthcentury theologian Thomas Aquinas's declaration that

This quotation embraces a range of antiwoman perceptions. It correlates action and perfection with masculinity, and it construes femininity with an always defective humanity. Most strikingly, the male seed enables a “perfect likeness,” and that similitude relates to man's resemblance to God, as he was produced in his image. Women, however, as the result of a broken process, cannot participate in the same level of resemblance to God. In terms of the biological dimensions of Thomas's argument, he has embraced an Aristotelian view of generation. As a theologian, however, he has added “likeness” to the equation, making the biological ontological. In so doing, Aquinas was following his predecessor, Abelard, who had inaugurated these arguments in the century before. The defectiveness of woman is no longer consigned to the realm of the earthly, but has spiritual dimensions as well. They are unable to participate in God's likeness to the same degree as men due to the imperfection of their conception.

We do not need to look hard to find more of the same within scholastic theology. Women were normatively understood to be naturally subject to men, as creatures with a lesser capacity for reason and a larger capacity for concupiscence. All souls were created equal, but souls on earth resided in bodies that were not at all equal. That is, women were as capable as men of achieving salvation. Just as for men, the criteria for their access to eternal bliss was their faith in God, their earnest participation in the sacraments, and whether or not they had lived a good and humble life. What it meant, however, to live a good and humble life on earth was not gender neutral.