Women Are Not Born To Be Controlled

Women Are Not Born To Be Controlled

By: Joni

    For homework, my teacher had the class read this poem called “Verses Written by a Young Lady, on Women Born to Be Controll’d.” That bored me to death because it was about men controlling women. I mean, how cruel is that? I don’t think I’ll ever be put in a situation where I’m being controlled by a man. Only because I have a unisex name: Joni. And it’s not spelled “Johnny.” That’s how a boy would spell it. I forgot to mention something. I’m six feet tall, which intimidates some of the boys I go to school with. But it doesn’t bother me at all. According to the poem I read, women were subjected to men in every state in 1743.  It made me laugh. I couldn’t imagine living in a society where women were inferior to men. The next day in class after reading the poem, all the boys thought they controlled the school. They ordered the girls around the hall.  In the poem it says, “Subject to man in every state, how can she then be free from woes?” (Anonymous, lines 3-4). But not me. I refuse to take any orders from a man! My personal thoughts on the poem is that women had more power than they thought. They just allowed the men to control them because they had no voice in society. Women were treated as property and in some cases, slaves. For example, in the poem it states, “To a slave’s fetters add a slavish mind, That I may cheerfully your will obey” ( Anonymous, lines 23-24).  I feel as though society was unfair to women when women contributed more to society than men. Women took care of the children and the house. Therefore, they had more power than men, since family is an important part of society. So why were women inferior to men? That’s a question that still baffles me.

Bibliography:

Anonymous. Verses Written by a young lady, on women born to be controll’'d!” Common Lit. n.d. Web. 14 March 2016.