Aristocratic women might have political careers, or might become abbesses, some very powerful. 

•Wealthy merchants’ widows took up shipping. 

Tradesman’s wives often assisted their husbands. Middle class women also engaged in embroidery, millinery, ribbon-making, yarn-spinning, silk spinning, gold spinning, silk weaving, candle-making, pottery, pin-and-needle-making, the bookmaking crafts (parchmenting, authorship, working as scribes, illuminating texts, translation, binding, and fastener-making), bookselling, dressmaking, coif-making, glove-making, lace-making, baking, ale-making, innkeeping, running poultry shops, and butchering.

Working class women could be servants or farmers, as well as laundering, picking grapes, or being a street vendor.

In general, women were relegated to the lower paid, less skilled jobs in any field, and when they performed the same work as men, they were paid about half.  Many guilds discouraged or prohibited women from working in their fields.  As cities became more crowded in the later Middle Ages, women were pushed out of many professions.