Through this women’s literature course I not only learned about remarkable women but I also learned who I really am as a person as well and I was given reasons to cherish the life I have today. Women are the back bones of this world and they are the motivation for one woman to another. Over the years women have created hope for many and through that hope freedom was gained, because it’s mind over matter! I was asked the question How does power, freedom, and choices relate to Women’s Literature? Well power, freedom and choices relate to woman literature physically and emotionally in many ways. The women that I have had the opportunity to learn about in Women’s Literature 150 are extraordinary women. The choices that they have made in their lives were dramatic ones, which led to the power and the freedom that women today have. Women such as Margery Kempe, Anne Bradstreet, Phillis Wheatley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Isabella Baumfree, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Jane Austen, Harriet Jacobs, Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Zora Neale Hurston, Gwendolyn Books, Sylvia Plath, Jamaica Kincaid, Maya Angelou, Alice Walker, and Adrienne Rich, all played a significant role in why most women no longer visualize themselves less valuable than men in our societies, and I will give reasons through words from some of the women above to explain how power, freedom and choices relate to women’s literature from the past and today. In the time that these women were growing up men were superiors to them. Women were not a loud a voice, they were slaves to their husbands, housewives, cooked, cleaned and tended to their children or others children, and if they refused such things harsh actions were brought upon them. Those traumatic times did not put a stop to these magnificent women. Margery Kemp, Believed there was only one man that was greater than all and that was her God. No matter how many times she was forced into sex by her husband, nor no matter the children she bared for him, her heart belonged to God because she knew that he would never steer her in the wrong path of forbidden lust as her husband had done. She was a believer that God wanted her to preach to people all over the world and make them understand they have a choice to follow what is right or wrong, she wanted women to be more powerful than what their husbands wanted them to be and she believed with faith that they would overcome and would gain independence which would make them free of destruction. In her eye’s men were guilty of trying to hold women back from achieving such things. “If any man is evil pleased with my preaching, not him wee, for he is guilty” (pg.57). When she would undergo pain from her husband or those who disliked her preaching, she felt she was undergoing this pain for Christ himself. By her vowing to be free of sin made her free in soul as well, and made her one of the most powerful women of her time because she let nothing stand in her way and that was a bold choice to make. Ann Bradstreet which whom is considered to many as the first American women poet was very modest, but other women could look up to her and learn from the challenges she faced in marriage and personal life. She was a good example of what is known as a house wife, her devotion to her husband was remarkable she made the choice to devote her life to her husband and her marriage, because she too was a religious woman whom believed that God could pull her through all triumphs. She had the power to believe in herself and her writing and the willingness to speak freely about her love for her husband and how she often missed him. In her poem “To My Dear And Loving Husband,” “If ever man were loved by wife, when thee; if ever wife was happy in a man.” she adored him, but at the same time she did not let that stop her from perusing her dreams as a writer, which was a choice that she made to overcome those lonesome days and nights. Phillis Wheatley was known as the first African American poet and the first African American to publish her writing. We all know that in the 1700’s being African American was not easy, and being an African American woman was so much harder. But Wheatley was a bit different from the average slaves; she was what we call privileged. She was better known as an educated slave. The family who brought her let her learn to read and write so that they could show her off to their guest as entertainment. Wheatley made the choice to use what she learned to better herself and to gain the power to be more advanced to wise up herself and other slaves which would help them to gain the freedom they so dearly wished for, and to escape the lonesome feeling she endured from missing her own mother and father whom she was taken away from when she was just a little girl. She believed that she had been saved by Christianity and that color made no difference because in her eyes whites and blacks were the same. She believed that America would overcome all the barriers and would come together and achieve with the right person in charge. In her letter to the Honorable William she states, “No more, America, in mournful strain of wrongs, and grievance underdressed complain.”(pg.360) she believes eventually everyone will be free from the racial barriers, and whites will no longer have the power to dictate the lives of the coloreds.
Isabella Baumfree was more than a remarkable woman and through her pain and triumphs she gained experience to speak of many issues and became known as Sojourner Truth. “So christened, she sojourned alone to speak the truth on tours that would make her famous throughout the United States” (pg. 509.) Her words had meaning. She was an example of the women who believed that women needed to be free and not just from slavery but from the men in their lives, from the harsh treatments that were subjected to. She was a believer that women certainly needed to get out there and seek their own independence and she preached about it to wise them up. “Ain’t I woman,” states, “That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches and to have the best place everywhere” (pg. 510). Truth is saying that men believe that women are incapable of doing such things on their own and that’s why they are needy. Truth does not agree with that statement and in fact believes women don’t need men to dictate their lives. In fact she believes that she can do anything a man can do. She has bared children which men will never have the opportunity to do, she has been beaten so badly at the hands of men who tried stripping her of her character, but she didn’t let those things break her spirits it only made her get closer to God, because he was the only man who could save her from her misery. Truth spoke about how men didn’t want women in the earlier centuries to enjoy their own freedom and independence and in my opinion it was because men were scared that women would become more relevant and their opinion would began to matter. As we see in today’s societies woman have become an impact on our nations and stand in high ranks so let’s solute to Sojourner Truth for her journey so that women could overcome those misconceptions of men. Women have searching for many years for their own independence, and after seeking they found! They refused to submit themselves to the emotional powers of men around the world and eventually they willingly gave in to their urge to speak out about the injustice and maltreatment of women in the earlier centuries. It is certainly the freedom of choice that plays a major role in women’s literature today. To be free to choice what happens in your own life makes a major difference in each individual. These women have opened up their personal lives to the rest of the world and taught many of us a wise lesson and that is, “Anyone can be saved no matter the circumstance, believe in self and all things come in time.” In my opinion Literature was set into place to present women with choices and to help them widen their horizons and know there is a real life out their waiting for them to open up and grasp it. In the earlier centuries choices began very limited to women so to get around that women began using fictional characters and stories to open up to the new life they were searching for. So, to answer the question How power, freedom and choice relates to women literature, Power was once known to men only in the earlier centuries until women started to question the characteristics of these men whom they were taught to obey and started searching for their own independence which gave women lead way and helped them gain respect. Women yearned for freedom so long because they were trapped in these lives that they had to role play happiness and were not going to stop until freedom was granted. Women made the choice, no matter how long it has taken, to eventually face the facts, and in most cases not to accept the mistreatment and stand up and make a difference in the world.