The poem's 'I am not that women' by Kishwar Naheed and 'women work' by mayo Angelou show the struggles of two black women from different cultures. Compare and contrast the two women's experiences.

Authors Avatar

Kristina Carpenter

The poem’s ‘I am not that women’ by Kishwar Naheed and ‘women work’ by mayo Angelou show the struggles of two black women from different cultures. Compare and contrast the two women’s experiences.

The two poems ‘I am not that women’ by Kishwar  Naheed and ‘Women Work’ by Mayo Angelou are two examples of how black women were treated in these days. The poems come from two different backgrounds but each have similarities and differences. In this essay I intend to compare and contrast the two poems to hopefully give a better understanding of the two poems, and show how the two women faced exploitation and oppression.  The purpose of these poems is to highlight the lives and difficulties of women from other cultures and traditions. Poetry is the chosen medium for these two writers, it gave them a way to express there true feelings and opinions without the fear of getting abused for sharing them.

    Mayo Angelou is a highly respected and educated black American who is writing about the daily struggle of a working class woman. Her ‘escape’ is her mind, her flight of fantasy, as she pleads to another women (mother nature) to release her.

    Kishwar Naheed is also a highly educated, successful woman who takes on the customs and traditions of her Asian background. This poem ‘I am not that women’ tells of the difficulties that a particular women faces in her struggle against a male dominated society (patriarchal).

‘I am not that women’ is a poem by Kishwar Naheed, it displays the issues of discrimination against women and how men treated them. The title of this poem is a strong positive sentence ‘ I am not that women’ she (whether it be the poet or a made up women) is not the usual women who is treated harshly by men, she is the women who is going to stand up for the right of equal-ness! This gives the poem a bit of  authority at the start.

    The stanzas are not of any regular pattern, the first stanza consists of 6 lines where as some of them are run on lines.

    The first stanza starts with ‘I am’ which Is repeated variously around the poem, this gives a strong voice across to give enthusiasm to ‘I am’ so the reader remembers this statement. It also gives the impression that this women is a person and she does exist, its stating a positive fact. ‘I am’ is followed by ‘selling you socks and shoes’ this is here to point out that she isn’t just here for the mans benefit, to be here just to get the mans shoes and socks for them but here for their own benefit, to enjoy themselves. This sentence is ended with a exclamation mark, this is used for effect to give the sense of a strong statement being made. Another strong statement that is used throughout the poem is ‘remember me’ this is again her plea to extinguish her existence. She is making herself the subject of this poem by always bringing herself into the topic ‘remember me’ and ‘I am’.  This statement ‘remember me’ is followed by ‘I am the one you hid in your walls of stone’ suggesting that this man that the poem is aimed at is trapping her at home and making her do the house work. ‘not knowing that my voice cannot be smothered by stone’ although she is stuck in this house she will be heard no matter what and she makes the point of saying this.

Join now!

     ‘I am’ is again used at the beginning of stanza 2 but in a different way. The difference is a positive statement where she is recognises that she is an individual who cannot be abused. Instead of stating that she is the women, she states she isn’t the women who was ‘crushed by custom and tradition’ This statement recognises that men can treat women in an appalling manner knowing full well that men have the right to treat women how they wish. The word ‘crushed’ is a very strong harsh verb, which shows the strengths of the oppression. ...

This is a preview of the whole essay