ABSTRACT
This chapter explains the interventions produced by fictional or real women in what was known as the querelle des femmes. This was an ongoing debate on the nature of women, centred upon the question of their innate immorality versus their natural morality being made in the image of God. The debate consists of a series of pro-feminist and anti-feminist texts, mostly arguing about the same key passages in authoritative texts, classical and scriptural. Although the so-called woman debate is only one of the genres appropriated by women in the early modern period, it is one which has taken on a particular valency for scholars of Renaissance women's writing. The body of Sowernam's text critiques Swetnam's style and logic, thereby proving the false grounds upon which he makes his arguments. Certaine Quaeres to the bayter of Women continues the stance of Speght apologising for her ignorance in such a way as to suggest the depth of Swetnam's foolishness.
