This paper presents the results of five years of research into the social history of women's writing in the Occitan-speaking area in the 12th and 13th centuries. Three main aspects of the research will be used to describe the research conclusions: the work of the so-called trobairitz in the light of the social status of women; the role of this work in the sociopoetic system of trobar; and the influence of their poetics on male troubadours. The conclusions point to the metonymic nature of the relationship between the socio-economic position of women, resulting from tradition and legal conditions, and their literary work. In particular, it should be emphasised that, contrary to popular belief, the poetics of these texts had a significant influence on the male authors. The presence of women in the literary and social world was therefore not a marginal phenomenon, but a fact that influenced the shape of both medieval poetry and medieval society in southern France.