Anne Bradstreet Research Paper

Emily Oncale

Professor J. James

American Literature

18 September 2015

Early Feminism in the 1600s

Men have always been considered the superior gender, especially back in the days of Anne Bradstreet. Bradstreet, however, was determined to show that she was not going to be held back by the standards of women set by society. Canadian author Margaret Atwood perfectly put in to perspective how men and women are viewed in society when she said, “We still think of a powerful man as a born leader and a powerful woman as an anomaly.” Why is it that women are taught that they have to prove themselves worthy to live in a man’s world? I believe Anne Bradstreet, like many women today, wanted equality of the genders. Bradstreet, unknowingly, contributed to an important movement that is still around today, the feminist movement.

Unlike many of the young women of her time, Anne Bradstreet had the privilege of receiving a superior education. Her father, Thomas Dudley, made it a priority to teach her how to read and write. As Anne grew up she continued her studies and married Simon Bradstreet at the age of sixteen. Shortly after she was married, her husband was assigned to help prepare the Massachusetts Bay Company. Anne, along with her husband and parents, set sail with

Winthrop’s fleet to the new world. Very little is known of Anne’s daily life in the new world except for the fact that she never was a very strong woman. She suffered from rheumatic fever beginning at a young age and had symptoms reoccur constantly throughout her adult life. However, she still carried and delivered eight children. Anne Bradstreet constantly fought for what she believed in. She continued to write as an adult even though women authors were rarely heard of at the time.
Bradstreet was a woman that easily fit into a man’s stereotype of what a woman was capable of at that time. She was seen simply as a weak human being, as a mother who should do nothing but take care of her children, and as a person not intelligent enough to produce writings of a high caliber. Bradstreet perfectly executes this in a writing of hers that states:
I am obnoxious to each carping tongue
Who says my hand a needle better fits,
A poet’s pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits:
If what I do prove well, it won’t advance,
They’ll say it’s stol’n, or else it was by chance. (NAAL 111)
I love how Bradstreet says that men despise an intelligent female.

It really puts in perspective how many women feel today. So many intelligent women, in a way, have to prove themselves in ways that men will never experience. Women have come along way since the 1600s in regard to things such as voting, education, and job equality. However, women still have ways to go in terms of overall equality. Bradstreet’s writings are unique in a way that she talked about how men viewed her, but she also wrote about how it would not affect her choice to write. Their offenses meant nothing to her because she took pride in what she did, she did not need her work justified by men for her to believe in herself and her

talent.
I personally chose to discuss Anne Bradstreet because I understand what it is like to be told you can not excel at something because you are a woman. I have, since I was a young girl, envisioned myself as a doctor. I have constantly worked toward this goal and pushed myself to the limits especially in my schoolwork. I have never worked hard to prove anyone wrong, but to prove to myself that I am capable. Smart, independent, self-driven women are always pushed down by society, but that does not mean that they should ever find a reason to stop pushing back.