 Since poetry was highly stylized , it is difficult to determine when a poet speaking as a woman actually was a woman , or a man speaking as a woman . This adds to the difficulty of attribution , especially of anonymous writers . There is some debate as to whether or not the poems by the trobairitz represent genuine feminine voices , since they worked within the highly circumscribed conventions of the troubadours . Matilda Bruckner suggests that the trobairitz " spoke in her own voice as channeled through the voices of many others " . By manipulating the strict constructs of troubadour lyric , the trobairitz were able to create their own " fictions of the female voice " . 
