It is perhaps strange to us to see a woman as successful as Gracia Mendes in the 15th Century. In fact, though, there are records of many successful and important women in both Moslem and Christian Sephardic times.

Which is not to say that women as a whole had a status much different from what we generally imagine. Community norms in the 12th century generally kept women in the home, although not generally in the kind of isolated women’s’ quarters favored by Muslims. Maimonides wrote "There is nothing more beautiful than a wife sitting in the corner of her house." However, he did appreciate that women were not prisoners and should be granted freedom of visiting outside the home — so long as it wasn’t too frequent. This freedom was often a source of marital conflict and was often a specific requirement made by women in order to accept reconcilement.

Marriages were arranged, usually at the age of thirteen or fourteen, typically to a considerably older man. Marriage was structured by the ketubah. These contacts specified the economic requirements on the husband to provide for the wife and family, and of the woman to bring a dowry. They might also contain clauses that provided social safeguards to the woman, especially in matters of divorce and desertion where, by rabbinic law, all the rights are given to the husband. The result was to redefine marriage as a partnership and give the right of divorce to the wife as well as to the husband.

It was not uncommon for women of all social classes to earn money, usually through needlework or embroidery. Typically the wife could keep that money for herself.

As early as the 12th century Maimonides is adjudicating a case involving a woman who, after her husband deserted her, opened a successful school. (The husband returns eventually and demanded that his wife close the school. Maimonides’ solution was that if the women chose to return to her husband , he would have the right to forbid her to teach, but otherwise that the rabbinical court compel the husband to grant a divorce.) This raises the question of the education of women. In another 12th century instance, a community leader in Baghdad who had no sons brought up his daughter to be an expert in Talmud. "She gives instruction in the Scripture to young men through a window. She herself is within the building, whilst the disciples are below outside and do not see her". There are other instances from that era, although education for women was actually quite rare. However, many references testify to the piety and observance of Jewish women and their attendance at synagogue. Moreover prosperous women donated Torah scrolls for the service, oil and books for study, and left legacies for the upkeep of the synagogue.

In the 15th and 16th centuries, while education for women remains rare, there are exceptions. While it is not surprising to learn that Jewish women served as midwives to Christian families, there were also Jewish women who practiced medicine–some obtaining authorizations to practice from the king himself.

Women of greater means appear as merchants or moneylenders. One Dona Encave from Pamplona, in the second half of the 14th century, was a well established merchant who counted the court among her clientele. Furthermore, as many professions required extensive travel, women became active in family financial affairs, including management of the family business, while their husbands were away.

Widowhood bestowed special freedom on a woman: she was single, but did not have to return to her parents; she controlled her dowry and inheritance, and was responsible for herself and her children. Spanish law was especially generous to female survivors, to the point of mandating that children of both sexes share equally in inheritance from a deceased parent.

Gracia Mendes is just one example of a woman who used widowhood and wealth as a platform to gain power and influence —- and to use them wisely. Benvenida Abravanel, niece of the famous Isaac Abravanel, married her first cousin Samuel. After leaving Spain in 1492 the two settled in Naples where Samuel became head of the Jewish community. She was "associated" in the education of Leonora, second daughter of the Spanish king’s Viceroy in Naples, Don Pedro de Toledo. After Leonora became grand duchess of Tuscany she continued to turn to Benvenida for advice. When the Jews were threatened with expulsion from Southern Italy in 1541 Benvenida was able to use her influence to postpone the decree, although she could not ultimately avert it, due to the influence of Emperor Charles V. The couple settled in Ferrara, where their mansion was a center of cultural life. Don Samuel dies in 1547, and Benvenida continues the business, securing important commercial privileges in Tuscany. She was ardent in her support of Jewish causes in her individual charities. She provided dowries to penniless orphans, was a patron of learning, and is said to have ransomed over one thousand Jewish prisoners.

Esther Kiera was Turkish born, of modest origins. She and her husband began as petty merchants or cosmetics and trinkets; she was widowed in 1548, in her late twenties or early thirties. She began to concentrate on provided services to the women of the sultan’s harem, who could not have contact with men outside their families by Moslem law, and could only be visited inside the harem by the sultan and his eunuchs. Esther served three sultans in this way, and amassed both influence and wealth, which she used to support scholars, aid in the printing of Hebrew books, and to fund merchants whose business had suffered due to fire of theft.

In general, women were known to be "outstanding in their devotions to Judaism, religious observance, and aware of the need to perpetrate their traditions." This tradition continues well into 17th century Mexico: Arnold Witznitzer writes of the crypto-Jews there that " The judaizing woman, in Mexico as in other countries of the dispersion, played an enormous part in holding the torch of Judaism for centuries after the forced conversion to Catholicism at the end of the 15th century. They taught their Jewish children rites and prayers, and often they endured torture in the prisons of the Inquisition with greater fortitude than men."

http://www.kahalbraira.org/mendes/GraciaMendes.html