To be Determined Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words - 1

To be Determined - Essay Example Collier wastes little time stating that she felt wronged by Mr. Ducks poem and suggests that it is perhaps men who are to blame for any perceived faults women may display. She describes a time when women were honored by men simply because they were women. During this Golden Age, women were revered as objects of desire and revered as givers of life. She speaks of a day and age when men labored and toiled so women could devote themselves to pursuits more in keeping with their sex. She suggests that is the men that are at fault for ending the Golden Age, not women. Having established that perhaps mankind as a whole is at fault for their current attitudes toward women, Collier next seeks to establish the fact that women perform many of the same chores on the farm as men. She describes cheerfully threshing hay and working in the fields alongside the men. By establishing womens participation in traditional labor performed by men, Collier is preparing to establish her theme of inequality by going into detail concerning the labors expected of women that occur after the men are asleep or at leisure. Women have countless chores around the household. When the men were in the field, women could stay home to do work such as caring for children, gardening, tending to domestic animals and preparing food for the family. But when women were called into service in the fields, they needed to help there in addition to all of these other duties. This results in a workday for women that begins very early and ends very late. Collier describes this inequality by s peaking of waking as the stars are still shining and the men folk are still in bed slumbering and dreaming. (141-146) Though written over two hundred and fifty years ago, Collier could have well been writing about the trials of modern women in the workplace. While men share more in domestic chores than they