F***** From the Start: Misogyny in Medieval Literature

It all started at the very beginning. In Genesis, when Eve was created from the rib of Adam and when she bit into the forbidden fruit, the literary character of Eve determined the perception of women who would be born hundreds of years after the biblical story was told -possibly until the end of eternity. About 1,600 years after this story allegedly originated, Joesph Swetnam decried the rib, the woman, as a crooked thing, good for nothing else. He blames Eve as representative of womankind for man\u27s fall (Greenblatt 1651). Interpretations like this, of the woman as the sinful servant to mankind, perpetuated misogyny and violence against women