The literary theme here is that women have a difficult time because nobody takes them seriously, or at least that's what it was like in the first half of the 20th century. Many people believed that women shouldn't be taken seriously and shouldn't have things like voting rights or rights to work or similar things because they were considered to be less serious than men, and that's putting it nicely because many people were not nice to them.
Chaucer describes different characters focusing on the positives and negatives of the people in an entertaining way. The different states included in the tales are England's clergy, the nobility and merchants.
It shows bad examples like the abuses of the clergy with the reference of the nun and the way she dresses.
A good example could be the Plowman's case. A worker that according to the author lives in pace and is a man of God. He respects the Lord and likes charity helping the poor.
