Women were so oppressed in the Middle Ages that they never did anything of interest
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Medieval society was certainly deeply patriarchal, and women were severely oppressed. However, this does not mean that women were passive victims. There are many examples of extraordinary women who achieved great notoriety: Eleanor of Aquitaine, Joan of Arc, Catherine of Siena, to name a few.
But we also now know much more about the day-to-day lives of women across the social spectrum. Women participated in social, economic and political life, actively and often critically.
For instance, peasant women played critical roles in their small-holdings; single women in towns were very economically active; merchant women sometimes ran businesses very successfully. And women stuck together. We find cases of women helping each other in cases of sickness; sisters, mothers and daughters sticking up for one another; and women accompanying one another on difficult journeys.
Everyone was short and died young
Evidence such as the small size of many medieval door-frames has led many to believe that people were significantly shorter in the Middle Ages. In fact, archaeological analysis shows that average heights have changed little over the past 1,000 years. From the 10th century through to the 19th-century, the average height did not shift more than a few centimeters from about 158cm for women, and 170cm for men.
It's also misleading to think that life span was considerably reduced. Averages are skewed by the very high mortality rates in periods of epidemic disease, such as the Black Death of 1348 and by the high incidence of childhood mortality. In fact, sources provide many examples of village elders in their eighties, able to reminisce about the profound social changes since their childhood.