For who can deny but it repugneth to nature that the blind shall be appointed to lead and conduct such as do see; that the weak, the sick, and impotent persons shall nourish and keep the whole and strong; and finally, that the foolish, mad, and frenetic shall govern the discreet and give counsel to such as be sober of mind? And such be all women compared unto man in bearing of authority. For their sight in civil regiment [government] is but blindness, their strength weakness, their counsel foolishness, and judgment frenzy.

—John Knox in The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women (1558)