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This is a great question!

...So naturally I'm going to start by pushing back against it.

There are cases powerful political/ecclesiastical officials approved and even encouraged women writers. There are cases where powerful officials persecuted women writers and even burned them at the stake. And there are cases where powerful officials approved women writers and other powerful officials persecuted them and burned them at the stake.

Honestly, the more I study medieval women (especially medieval religious women), the harder it is to pick out patterns in terms of opposition to writers based on gender. For example: Marguerite Porete is the first example that comes to mind whenever one thinks about persecution. She and her book, the fantastically-named Mirror of Simple Souls, were both burned at the stake for heresy in 1310.

But then you remember that a Franciscan friar named Guiard of Cressonessart was charged and would have been condemned alongside Marguerite (nb: it is proper to use women writers' surnames if they are known, but "Porete" is a diminutive nickname meaning 'leek', not a surname). Unlike her, however, he recanted and was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment in a monastery instead. And Sean Field has recently argued that Marguerite's condemnation was as much political and theological. Oh, yeah, and Marguerite had won the approval of three different high-powered Church officials for the Mirror before she was arrested.

Or let's take the case of Cistercian abbess Beatrijs of Nazareth compared with beguine (kind of like a nun, but not enclosed in a formal convent) Mechthild of Magdeburg, both from the thirteenth century. Both of them wrote "mystical" treatises in their vernacular, which describe the relationship of the soul with God in sometimes breathtakingly erotic terms.

Both women also had their texts "translated" into Latin by men, and by translated, we mean adapted, altered, had parts shifted around, rewritten. TBeatrijs of Nazareth used metaphorical language of the soul feeling like, experiencing sensations as if physical. Her male hagiographer, promoting her potential sainthood, turned the description into actual events affecting her physical body. Her relationship with Christ moves several steps more explicit in terms of erotic and even sexual undertones.

Mechthild also used metaphorical language of the soul to describe her unions with Christ. Her anonymous clerical (ergo male) translators removed the most erotic parts as they reworked her text in order to protect the reputation of the author.

Right.

Nevertheless, it remains the case that there are just hopelessly fewer known women writers than known male writers from Latin medieval Europe. So: was there opposition to women writing based on gender? Yes, but it was systemic.

The first point to clarify is indeed education. Throughout the Middle Ages, the primary locus of education was the Church, in particular, monasteries. There are exceptions towards the end of the Middle Ages--roughly from Mechthild's time on forward--but these are very, very rare overall. In the Middle Ages, monastic schools tried to be limited to students who would go on to become novice nuns or monks/friars and take vows in their community. The other path for men from the late twelfth century onwards, grammar school in preparation for university, was absolutely closed to women.

This pitched women into a world where writing almost exclusively meant religious. That, in turn, was a particular wrinkle for women because of canon law: women (non-clergy) are not allowed to preach and teach religion (interpret the Bible) in public. That rule was extended to writing.

Now, nuns did a substantial amount of writing...for their own communities. Original texts as well as anthologies of excerpts and outright copies of existing texts. They were active in sending letters to other women's convents. But we're talking about public writing here.

The first layer of opposition to women writers based on gender, therefore, was money. On average, women's convents were substantially poorer than men's. The difference grew even greater over the course of the Middle Ages. Men could become priests--by 1100 or so, monks are basically all ordained. Therefore, they could earn money performing Masses for aristocrats seeking prayers for themselves and their families in purgatory or in preparation for it. Women could and did earn money where they could, especially embroidering vestments and altar cloths for wealthy churches, but it was never sufficient.

Money is important here because materials to produce permanent writing were expensive. And with internal documents to compose, parchment was at an absolute premium.

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