“Women” by Louise Brogan (1923)
Women have no wilderness in them,
They are provident instead,
Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts
To eat dusty bread.
They do not see cattle cropping red winter grass,
They do not hear
Snow water going down under culverts
Shallow and clear.
They wait, when they should turn to journeys,
They stiffen, when they should bend.
They use against themselves that benevolence
To which no man is friend.
They cannot think of so many crops to a field
Or of clean wood cleft by an axe.
Their love is an eager meaninglessness
Too tense, or too lax.
They hear in every whisper that speaks to them
A shout and a cry.
As like as not, when they take life over their door-sills
They should let it go by.
“Men have natural strength. Women have to find their strength, and when they do find it, it comes forth with bitterness and it’s erratic.... Women are restless with each other. They are like live wires... either chattering to keep themselves from making contact, or else, if they don’t chatter, they avert their eyes...” --Fefu
“Woman is not a human being. She is: 1-- A mystery. 2-- Another species. 3-- As yet undefined. 4-- Unpredictable; therefore wicked and gentle and evil and good which is evil.” --Julia