“In either sex the appetite’s the same, / For the love of power is still the love of fame. / Women must in a narrow orbit move, / But power alike both males and females love. (Ingram, An Epistle to Mr. Pope 651)
This moment comes in the beginning of Ingram’s response to Alexander Pope’s Epistle 2 To a Lady. Specifically the moment in which Pope states that women only seek power and pleasure. Ingram then writes this portion of the poem addressing this statement.
Ingram is showing the idea of equality - that men and women are the same in their motivations. Both men and women desire power and fame and pleasure. Ingram then points out that women just have to go about achieving these desires through different means than men due to societal expectations and mores. They have to “move in a narrow orbit” since they are not able to directly go for their goals like a man is capable in society at this point in history. Women had to work within the domestic sphere or other occupations they were involved in in order to gain power and pleasure. This poem also associates power with the female gender, note solely the male gender.