May I suggest a book?
It is the essay Women in the Days of Cathedrals
by Regine Pernoud, a French historian and medievalist. It shows what
was women condition back in that days (RP disliked Middle Ages been
called ‘dark ages’), when they were rulers in various manners and not
subject to men as they were in ancient times, thanks to Christianity.
Women’s conditions became dark after the Middle Ages, due to the return
to a classical-like thinking, that was definitely patriarchal.

I also would like to say that Umberto Eco’s books are not, in my
opinion, very “serious” about Catholicity and Christianity. I read them
both when I was an atheist and not at all partial for the Church: Foucault’s Pendulum was boring, The name of the rose was not but it is a sort of a historical fraud, in spite of its scraps of documents, and its spirit is quite non-catholic.
If you know Italian language, you can read here something about The name of the rose: http://www.storialibera.it/epoca_medioevale/articolo.php?id=134&titolo=Contro%20%C2%ABIl%20nome%20della%20rosa%C2%BB.

Bye,
Umberta